


Montreuil Prison Study

by Sarah1281



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Schönberg/Boublil, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Prison, Psychology, Surprisingly not crack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-02
Updated: 2013-07-22
Packaged: 2017-12-13 19:01:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/827742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/pseuds/Sarah1281
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a disagreement about prisons and what they can do to a man, Madeleine and Javert are once again faced with the knowledge that they will not be able to change the other's mind with words. They decide to see if they can prove their point, instead, by placing Javert in a pretend prison situation with other volunteers and seeing what happens at the end of two weeks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a kink!meme prompt.

"Monsieur le Maire, I must once again ask that-" Javert started to say.

Valjean just shook his head tiredly at him and watched as Javert automatically broke off. "I am sorry, Javert, but I simply cannot accommodate you."

"I know that that man tried to pick your pocket. I have witnesses!" Javert exclaimed.

"And you have not arrested him," Valjean noted.

Javert scowled. "I would have but it is the word of children against the word of yourself. There is no point in even arresting him because the law dictates that your word be taken over theirs."

"Then that is settled," Valjean told him.

"It is not settled," Javert insisted. "I know that that man tried to steal from you and I know that you turned around and gave him your purse in turn."

"I have already stated that that did not happen," Valjean said calmly. "Would you call me a liar, Javert?"

Javert took a deep breath. "I would never, Monsieur." He was accusing him of lying whether or not he said those words but Javert's thoughts often seemed to move in directions that Valjean could not follow. "Though you are calling those children liars by contradicting them."

Valjean shook his head again. "I am doing no such thing. I am merely explaining that they must have made a mistake. They were farther away and had not been watching us when that man approached me and I gave him my purse." And that whole attempted pick pocketing had happened between those two events, of course, but at this point in his life lying to the police really didn't bother him.

Javert looked very much like he wanted to say something but was restraining himself. It actually looked like he wanted to say something so badly that it hurt him to hold back.

"Speak freely, Inspector," Valjean invited, amused.

Javert hesitated for another moment before it all came spilling out. "You always do this, Monsieur. Every time there is a crime you plead for mercy and reduce sentences if you do not outright snatch violent prostitutes from the jaws of justice!"

Nothing good would come of speaking of Fantine.

"It does not happen every time," Valjean argued. "Only when there is a compelling case to be made for allowing a little mercy to temper the harsh sword of justice."

"It was an affront to decency and the very governmental institution that you represent when you let that prostitute spit on you with no recourse but now you must shield thieves who would dare snatch a purse from your own person?" Javert demanded.

"I have told you that that is not what has happened," Valjean said again.

"And think of the future!" Javert cried out. "You are so concerned with your little acts of charity that you do not consider the broader implications. What will the more immoral among us do once they realize that they do not have to be particularly talented to get caught attempting to steal Monsieur le Maire's purse and they will just have it given to them! And you will deny it so that I cannot even use the law to deter them!"

"You are exaggerating, Javert," Valjean said, resisting the childish impulse to roll his eyes at the inspector's histrionics.

"I am not," Javert claimed. "You would do away with the police altogether if you could and just coddle ever criminal you came across in a lawless dystopia."

No, he was definitely not exaggerating.

"I just do not like to see men sent to prison," Valjean said quietly. "I especially do not like to see women or children sent there but a man sent to prison is more likely to condemn others." It was certainly true with him though that was not always the case, as demonstrated by Fantine and the child Javert still did not believe existed.

"No one likes to send men to prison," Javert replied. Valjean's skepticism must have shown on his face for he went on. "I will admit that I am glad to see criminals behind bars but I am not pleased that they are criminals in the first place. I assure you that if people like me were not necessary to enforce laws because crime did not exist then no one would be happier than I to need to find a new line of work at my age."

"You speak of trying to reduce crime and yet you would take these inoffensive if desperate men and turn them into animals in prisons," Valjean accused.

Javert gave him that pitying look then that he sometimes brought out whenever he felt that Valjean's hard-earned experience was mere naivety because what did "Monsieur Madeleine" know of any of the darker sides of life? Valjean rather detested that look.

"Respectfully, Monsieur le Maire, I was a guard stationed at Toulon for several years. You say that the men who emerge from Toulon are beasts and I will grant you that. I will, however, correct you in that they did not become beasts in prison, they were always such," Javert said politely, not a drop of the condescension Valjean knew was there in his voice.

"Perhaps I have never had the opportunity to see the inside of a prison myself," Valjean said slowly. And perhaps he had had the opportunity to spend nineteen years of his life there, enough time that even if he had been able to find his sister and her children, even if they were all still alive, even the youngest would have been grown and would not have needed him anymore. "Still, I have seen many men leave Toulon and you cannot possibly expect me to believe that they are the same as when they enter. It is not just the superficial things like the shorn head or the many scars. There is a fundamental change that allows you to always be able to tell a man who has been to prison from one who has not, even if the man who has not is a criminal himself and merely fortunate enough not to have been arrested."

Javert nodded. "I can concede that."

Valjean frowned. "Agreeing with me so soon, Inspector?"

"Hardly."

Valjean looked pointedly at him.

"Prison does enact changes but I must insist that they are all superficial changes," Javert elaborated.

"Inspector, once a man is released from prison there is a-a darkness inside of them, a wariness, a hatred of even the innocent in as much as these men can believe that there is such a thing," Valjean said, hoping his voice sounded steadier to Javert's ears than it did to his own. "Things that were not present before."

There was that look again and it was all the more frustrating because Valjean, like Javert, was not speaking in the abstract but from personal experiences. Since Valjean had actually been one of those miserable and bitter parolees, he would argue that he had a better idea of what it was like than Javert did. He knew for a fact that prison had changed him, changed him so much that he could barely even recall whatever he had been before. He could win the argument, perhaps, if Javert did not feel that he was merely making excuses but after that things would go…badly. As in, being immediately rearrested and sent back to Toulon for breaking his ban badly.

"Things that were not readily apparent, perhaps," Javert corrected. "Monsieur le Maire, in some men there is just an inherent flaw, a weakness of character that lends itself to crime. Perhaps in the right circumstances that flaw never manifests itself but it is always there and the minute that they are desperate or greedy or perhaps even just angry that flaw is exposed for the world to see in the form of a crime. They may try to hide it away or pretend that it is not true, that it is the circumstance or that one act does not define them but it is simply not true. They were always beasts and it just takes a little time in Toulon for them to give up and admit it."

Giving up and admitting it. Valjean remembered it well. It had been more like giving up and just letting the change happen since, despite his best efforts, he couldn't seem to stop it. But that had not been his true self and he had not always been like that. He was not like that now, though perhaps closer to it than he had once been. That had been what Toulon had done to him. It was what Toulon did to everyone.

"If you were right," Valjean said, once he'd managed to compose himself, "then why would you want them to stop 'pretending' not to be beasts? Wouldn't it be better for society if they did cling to some pretence of humanity for less problems in prison and when they are released?"

Javert shrugged. "It would make no difference. Prison is not designed to make men face themselves, after all. It is just a common side effect from realizing that there is no longer anyone to fool."

It was not true. Valjean knew it was not true. He could not say it, though, and even if he had he may not be believed. Who listened to the word of a thief? Certainly not Javert.

But how to convince Javert that he had his cause and effect backwards?

"I say to you that if you put anyone in Toulon, anyone at all, then they would resemble the meanest of convicts after enough time has passed," Valjean declared boldly. "Perhaps the more virtuous or stronger among them would take longer to succumb but it would happen."

"If a citizen who had committed no crime did reveal themselves to be nothing but a beast after all then it was just a matter of a hitherto undiscovered weakness in their nature," Javert said simply.

How could he make him see, this blind man who refused even acknowledge his own failing?

"I would almost like to see how you would make out in such a place," he murmured absently, not truly meaning it of course. He would not wish Toulon on anyone. It might be the only thing that would make his Inspector see, however.

Javert looked impassively at him. "I would like to believe that such a thing is not in my nature. Given certain elements, I am forced to conclude that it may be and I may be unpleasantly surprised. It would prove nothing more than what I have said and show just how far a man can delude himself."

Valjean rather thought they were seeing a nice example of that already.

"Very well then," he said slowly as a thought occurred to him. "I propose a test."

"A test?" Javert looked intrigued despite himself.

"I would not subject anyone to Toulon if I could help it," Valjean said emphatically. "But what if we do set up a scenario where some people are prisoners and others are guards. It would not be for very long, perhaps two weeks, but during that time they would live as if they were at a prison. Oh, it would not be nearly as harsh as an actual prison but they would be isolated and not have the chance to return to their lives at the end of the day and ruin the illusion."

"What would be the point of that?" Javert wondered.

"The point is that you would find all of the participants," Valjean told him. "Men of good, honest character that you can be certain are not secretly beasts."

"I can never be certain of anyone," Javert argued. "But I do take your point. As certain as I can be of anyone, I will be certain of these men. They would have to be poor, I think, or they would never agree to participate no matter how overly generously I'm sure you would pay them."

"What do you believe will happen?" Valjean inquired.

Javert frowned. "I do not like to speculate."

"If we are going to do a test then we have to know what we are expecting the results to be," Valjean argued. "I believe that there will be a marked change in these men, at least the prisoners and possibly the guards as well, though the change will not be as severe as in one who has really been to Toulon for a prison term of far longer than two weeks."

If the prisoners changed then perhaps the guards did, too. He really did not know, having never had the opportunity to see a guard outside of their native environment. They were often nervous at first, he recalled, but grew more confident. Gaining confidence hardly counted as a true change, however. There was Javert, who was far different now than he was back in Toulon. But Valjean had only known Javert during and after Toulon and never before so that did not quite count. Besides, he was not entirely certain that it was Javert himself who had changed and not Javert's natural tendency to treat a hated convict far different from a respected superior.

Javert nodded curtly. "Very well. I believe that the guards will guard the prisoners and the prisoners will patiently wait out their two week sentence."

Valjean stared incredulously at him.

"It is only two weeks and they know that," Javert pointed out. "Even the most reckless and eager to run prisoners did not attempt to flee in their first two weeks. And these will be good men. Why would you expect anything different?"

"We shall see," Valjean said, electing not to repeat himself.

"We shall," Javert agreed. "I believe that I would like to be a part of this experiment."

Valjean blinked at him. "Of course you were going to be a part of this experiment. This experiment is for the purpose of proving one of the two of us wrong. We both have to be involved."

Javert shook his head. "I do not mean as merely an observer, as I assume that you will be doing. I wish to be actually involved, to better understand. If I am correct and nothing happens then I can be secure in my inherent goodness and separation from the beasts of Toulon."

"And if you are not?" Valjean asked pointedly.

"Then experiencing it for myself will allow me a better understanding of this…phenomenon," Javert replied calmly.

"Are you quite certain of this?" Valjean inquired. "I would not want you to-"

"Pardon, Monsieur, but are you suggesting that the scum of the Earth can withstand years, a lifetime even, of the harshest treatment we know how to give and the poor that I might find can withstand your little test but that I, an Inspector with the French Police, am not capable of such a thing?" Javert demanded, a challenging look in his eye.

Valjean swallowed his objection. "Of course not. I only aim to be certain that this is what you desire because it will be no good if you or any of the others desire to leave before the two weeks is up."

"I will not," Javert said with such unflappable certainty that Valjean did not dare doubt him. "Still, it is a good point to consider. It would be unlawful to demand that any man stay if he decides to withdraw from our little test and if this happens it may prevent us from being able to do it. Too few guards for the prisoners would be the worst case though too few prisoners and we may not be able to be sure that the reaction is the reaction that most would have instead of an unusual reaction we have managed to capture."

Valjean nodded his agreement. "What do you suggest?"

"We should have people who are not part of the test initially but who we can have come into the test if someone who is participating chooses to leave," Javert responded.

"We would need the same extra number of people as guards and as prisoners," Valjean mused.

"Why would we need that?" Javert asked. "If no one leaves then the extra people are not needed and so they do not need to be sorted. If we have five extra prisoners and five extra guards and six prisoners leave then we will need to use one of the guards so there is no need to sort them. I just do not see the point."

"It will make replacing them faster," Valjean insisted. "I do hope that we do not have six prisoners or six guards withdraw from this but in that case, you are right that we shall simply have to take one of the extra people who was assigned to the opposite role. It is a small matter."

"It is unnecessary," Javert protested.

"It is harmless," Valjean returned.

Javert could not argue with that though it seemed like he very much wished to.

"If you will be one of the guards then we will need to have one more person found who will be a prisoner," Valjean said slowly.

Javert held up a hand. "I do not intend to be a guard."

Valjean drew back. "You do not?"

Javert shook his head. "What would be the point of that? I have been a prison guard for years. I understand everything there is to know about being a guard and there is nothing that this little test of yours can teach me in that respect. I might be at a disadvantage, even, since the ways I know to control prisoners would undoubtedly be too harsh for your tastes and, as you said, we do not want to actually impose Toulon on these innocent men."

"But…why a prisoner?" Valjean could not understand it. Javert knew what it was like to be a prisoner as well as any who had not actually been in chains possibly could. Why would he willing inflict that upon himself? Did he have that much faith in Madeleine's mercy? Was he really so determined to prove a point?

"This whole thing is because you want me to believe that prison changes a man. What better way to know such a thing than to experience it yourself? I might never be entirely sure if the seemingly good men I find are really good and have changed or were always secretly beasts waiting to be discovered and chained. If nothing happens then it will be an easy matter to prove that I am right but if they do behave as animals do…Well, I would not hand you your victory so easily," Javert explained. "I will be able to watch the prisoners much closer if I am consigned to stay there with them as one of their fellows and I may yet learn something that I was not able to see as a guard. Prisoners are always different with guards than with each other. I am also reasonably sure that if I begin to act like a beast I will be able to tell whether I have changed or my true nature is being dragged into the light."

Dragged into the darkness would be more accurate.

"You take a great risk considering the possibility that you will find that you are right but that you were always one of those, how did you put it, 'beasts waiting to be discovered and chained'," Valjean pointed out.

Javert met his gaze levelly. "I have never run from the truth. If it turns out that I am not a good man then I am at least a man good enough to accept the punishment for my own failings."

He could say that now. He even seemed to mean it. Valjean wondered just how long he could possibly mean it in Toulon. It was good that neither of them would ever find out, he did not truly want to find out. And yet he still wondered.

\----

Javert was expected to show up at the building Madeleine had designated the prison at precisely noon but there was time until then. He had not been permitted to see the 'prison' though he was the only one of them who had actually been to a prison. Madeleine had insisted that he not see where he was to be spending the next two weeks because he thought seeing it before it would be put to use would make it seem less real. He said that it was enough that Javert knew far more about the test than anybody else playing as a guard or a prisoner would be.

This prison was always going to lack verisimilitude but Javert had insisted that Madeleine at least consult with Moreau, who had served as a prison guard himself at Château d'If. Madeleine had agreed though he seemed to be humoring him. It needed to be done, however. This false prison had to have some things in common with real prisons if this was going to serve any purpose whatsoever.

He was reading over his list of instructions for the two weeks that he would be gone. He knew, intellectually, that the town would not fall apart without him. It had gone on before he had arrived and it would make do once he was reassigned or no longer part of the force. And though Madeleine would be greatly distracted for the next two weeks monitoring what was going on in their test, he would still be available to deal with any problems that came up. Still, he was uneasy at being away from his post for so long and was greatly comforted at at least being able to leave instructions for his men.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang and his door flew open.

He rose, warily, trying to understand what was going on. Was he under attack? In broad daylight and he an Inspector of police! Such things did not happen. And yet…clearly something was occurring and he could think of nothing more plausible.

His confusion did not abate when his fellow officers stormed into the room.

"What are you-" he started to say before Durand grabbed him by the wrists and chained his hands. "What is the meaning of this?"

Moreau threw him a contemptuous look. "We're arresting you."

"This is an outrage!" Javert said angrily.

The men did not reply, just pushed him forward roughly and he stumbled a few steps.

"I haven't done anything wrong!" Javert insisted, feeling an uncomfortable familiarity settle over him. He had never been the man in chains but he could not deny that had seen this particular scene play out before regardless. And what was it that they always did? They denied the obvious truth of their guilt. Javert could not think of anyone he had ever arrested who did not end up in prison.

Was this what was in store for him? He did not understand it. He was always so careful – too careful, some said – to not break a law, not even the little ones that were not really enforced. How had this happened? How had he been so blindsided. Just yesterday these men had been treating him as one of their own and he had not had an inkling that anything was wrong. How could it have come to this?

As he was led outside and came face-to-face with the surprisingly burning eyes of his neighbors, a wild hope came to him. Perhaps this was not real. Perhaps it was just part of the very test that was to occur today. After all, what sort of prison term began with the prisoners casually making their way to their prison? No, it was always an arrest. But to use real officers…would Madeleine really do such a thing?

He did not know. He could not believe so.

And those eyes. They were cruel eyes, he decided. They came paired with cruel voices. They did not believe that this could be anything but the truth. They did not sound suitably surprised.

"I always knew that there was something off about that one."

"Walks around like he's so much better than the rest of us and see where that landed him!"

"What do you think they do to former inspectors in prison?"

"Is it any wonder? You could tell he was a criminal, alright, just looking at him."

The last one was the worst. He reminded himself, as he always did, that it did not matter. He may look like a criminal but he was not one. That thought did not bring as much comfort as it usually did.

\----

It had taken a little over a week for Valjean to arrange for a space large enough to use as a prison. They did not need much, merely three small cells that could not easily be escaped from as well as an area for the prisoners to go when they were not in their cells. That would serve all of their non-cell purposes nicely. It was not overly large because the prisoners were never given the luxury of a lot of space but it was not too small to be useful for whatever purposes the guards would have. And it would be the guards making most of the decisions, with him merely stepping in if things went too far.

In that time, Javert managed to thoroughly investigate twenty-three men that had agreed to take part in their test though six of them would only be used if need be. Valjean did not know how many men Javert had turned down nor how he managed to find so many so quickly but Javert was a professional and the ways of the law were still somewhat mysterious to him after all this time. He may have been a prisoner and he may be mayor now but that still only put him at the peripheral of it. And it would not surprise him in the least if Javert had already had an eye on these men. He worked so hard to try and know everything there was to know about the town and that meant knowing its inhabitants, the law-abiding and the criminal classes.

He had decided to inform guards that they would be reporting in at seven and the prisoners that they would be reporting in at noon. He had no particular reason for choosing the guards to be guards and the prisoners to be prisoners (with the obvious exception of Javert) and had just had every other person on the list Javert had given him be the prisoners.

Of course prisoners could not be allowed to report for their imprisonment! That did not set the right mindset. He remembered how it was clearly though other, pleasanter memories had long since faded. Toulon had never been a place for taking pain away.

It was late at night, everyone was sleeping or getting ready to. But when they heard the commotion with the broken window and the baker giving chase, they had come out to watch. He could still see them, faces that warred between scandalized excitement and harsh condemnation, bodies still dressed for bed. He had been tackled to the ground by the baker and sat on to prevent him from escaping. After a few years in Toulon he would have fled anyway but it had seemed to him then that he was caught and he was identified and it had not occurred to him to try and flee further. And his arm was bleeding everywhere, making it all too easy to have found him even if he had fled once again.

The baker had called for the police who arrived so quickly they must have heard the commotion and been making their way towards it anyway. His sister had not been there. She had not seen. That was good, he supposed, but it also meant that he had not gotten to see her again before he was dragged off to face his future in chains. He could not remember the last time he had seen her.

These 'prisoners' would not have to face being torn from everything they ever knew and loved with no way to return to that. They would not have to face being withheld from society for so long that they forgot how to behave in it. They would not realize that it did not matter that they had forgotten society because society had forgotten them, too, and would not welcome them back. They would not have one mistake haunt them for the rest of their lives. They would not have to spend years in the worst kind of hell that man could dream up. They wouldn't even be forced to stay the entire two weeks if they chose not to.

They could, however, bear all of the scorn from their neighbors as they were dragged away in chains by unsympathetic tools of the law and shoved into a cell with other men in the same sorry situation.

Javert's colleagues were all very helpful. They did not understand exactly what it was that he was trying to do but if their mayor had concocted the scheme and Javert had agreed to do it then that was enough for them. They carried out their arrests exactly as they would anyone else and made sure that there were plenty of witnesses. Well, almost exactly. He would not have his pretend prisoners beaten for agreeing to help them. Even the money he was paying them (too much, insisted Javert, who had only accepted his share because he was to be like all the rest for this test and that included being paid) would not make it acceptable to beat them.

And he was not a cruel man, not anymore. After his meeting with the guards he had gone around to all of the neighborhoods where the men were arrested from and explained what had happened to the most curious of souls. He did not have the time to tell everyone personally but the ones who appeared most interested in his presence were also the ones most liable to spread the story that he told.

The woman that he was currently with was a Madame Simon, a widow with two half-grown children. He was conscious, as ever, of the precarious position widows with children occupied in society but Madame Simon appeared to be doing well enough. It helped that her children were old enough to work a little themselves.

"It is good, as always, to see you Monsieur le Maire," Madame Simon told him. "But I do hope you know that I will not be able to think about anything else but Inspector Javert's recent arrest. I do hope you have come to explain what happened there."

Valjean smiled gently at her. "I have indeed."

Madame Simon leaned forward eagerly. "Was he abusing his position? Is this about that wh-Fantine? Was he stealing government money?"

"No, no, nothing of the sort," Valjean assured her. "Though I do hope that you will find this story at least a little interesting."

"Oh?" She could barely contain her excitement and one of her feet began to bounce.

"The Inspector and a few others are helping me with an important project," Valjean informed her.

"They're helping you by getting arrested?" Madame Simon asked, surprised.

"They were not really arrested."

Madame Simon's eyebrows shot up. "It certainly looked like it was a real arrest. I've seen my fair share of these things, I'll have you know."

"I do not doubt it," Valjean said smoothly. "It was supposed to appear real so that the people helping would feel it as a real arrest."

"What was the real purpose then?" Madame Simon asked, intrigued.

"We are trying to find out what happens when honest men are imprisoned," Valjean replied. "We want to see if they behave differently than criminals do."

"Y-you're going to lock honest men up?" Madame Simon couldn't believe it.

"Not in any sort of prison, just a pretend jail. I do believe that there are merits to discovering what happens to honest men who are locked up, so yes," Valjean confirmed. "They volunteered and may leave whenever they wish to. They will be well-paid and this only lasts for two weeks."

"I'm sure it will be nothing like what happens to the scoundrels who go out breaking laws and terrorizing society," Madame Simon said, scowling briefly at the thought of them.

Valjean was years past the point of being offended. "We will soon see whether that is the case."

"You really think that this will be useful?" Madame Simon asked doubtfully.

Valjean nodded. "There are circumstances where honest men are locked up, however rarely the case may be, and we should know what we can expect to happen to them. They may be kidnapped, for example, or if they are soldiers they could be captured by the enemy."

"That is true," Madame Simon agreed. ""I cannot begin to imagine what our soldiers suffered under those barbarians."

Valjean bowed his head. "As you say, Madame. If you have no further questions then I must go. I need to tell everyone on this street what really happened this morning."

"Oh, I am sure that you are very busy," Madame Simon said quickly, just as he had hoped that she would. Some women lived for gossip and this was clearly one of them. "I will take it upon myself to let everybody in the area know."

Valjean smiled at her. "That is very generous of you, Madame. If you are sure it will not inconvenience you unduly."

"I am positive," Madame Simon insisted, smiling back at him.

Valjean quickly took his lave and headed back to the 'prison' to observe the processing of the 'prisoners.' He had given very specific instructions based on a much-modified version of what was done at Toulon when convicts first arrived.

At his meeting with the guards, he had helped them come up with a list of rules the prisoners had to follow. He would allow the guards to do as they liked as long as they did not physically punish the prisoners or allow anything sexual to occur.

The guards all seemed to think that he was being ridiculous in even believing he needed to tell them any of that. They did not believe that they would try to have sex with the prisoners or that the prisoners would try to have sex with each other. They did not believe that they would attack their fellow honest men who were posing as prisoners. Perhaps they were right.

He would like to believe that they were right but he had spent too many years at the mercy of those who abused the absolute power they had over him and his fellows. He would take no chances with these innocents he had placed in this situation and so he had insisted. The guards agreed to abide by this though they were just humoring him. It did not matter, however, so long as they behaved in a more civilized manner.


	2. Chapter 2

Javert was sitting blindfolded in a room somewhere unknown, probably in the pseudo-prison. He must be in the pseudo-prison, he reasoned, because if he were in the real jail then there would be no need to blindfold him. It was…disconcerting, to put it mildly, not to be able to see.

The blindfold was not on so tight that it was painful but the feel of the fabric over his eyes was impossible to forget. Since there was no pain, why was the sensation so intolerable? His wrists were cuffed so he knew that he could not remove the blindfold even if he did try.

It took him a moment to remind himself that he would not if he could. He had agreed to this. This was only a test. But the cuffs on his wrists felt wrong. They reminded him of things that he cared not to think of. They were a remnant from a path he had long-since turned his back on. How could convicts stand it? Well, they deserved it and were used to it so it was probably not so bad. And even if it was, it was a punishment that they had earned. This blindfolding was not something that went on in prison, though, so it could not last forever. He did not understand why this was happening.

He could hear other men breathing and so knew that he was not alone. Was he in a cell? If so, were they all in the same cell or were there other cells close by? If only he knew. Perhaps the breathing was not from a fellow 'prisoner' at all but one of the guards or an observer. At least he knew that the other prisoners and guards were some of the people he had chosen and they were all good men. If he had been in here with an actual convict…and he, a man representing the law they so despised!

But he was getting ahead of himself. He was in a room, blindfolded and cuffed but it was just part of the test. He would not be beaten so easily. Madeleine would not win this before it had even begun.

He heard the sound of a door opening and then someone grabbed his wrists and forced him to stand. It was silent except for the footsteps and clinking of chains. He was led away, telling himself that it was alright because though he could not see the man leading him could and he would not be walked into a wall. At Toulon, he suspected that some of the guards would not be so careful but that would be negligence rather than deliberate cruelty and those men were criminals anyway. With all that they had done to society and with everything that society had seen fit to punish them with, bumping into a wall would really not have been a big concern for them.

Suddenly he was stopped short and his blindfold was removed. He saw that Madeleine was there as well as the men he had chosen for this little test. Eight of them were standing in line with him, chained as he was. Nine of them were identically dressed in something resembling the Toulon uniform he himself had once worn complete with a cudgel. The guards and prisoners then. He wondered if he would have to learn the taste of it. He had had some experience with physical blows but never meted out judiciously by an agent of the authorities.

Javert was right about this being part of the test. Of course he was. It was ridiculous to have ever thought otherwise. He was a little concerned that his ability to serve as an officer of the law would be compromised by his very public and seemingly real arrest but Madeleine did not have that little respect for the law and would surely explain the situation after this was all over.

"I hope that you all understand just how serious your crimes were," Madeleine said solemnly. "If you do not then I trust that by the end of your sentence the severity of these crimes will be fully impressed upon you. You are now prisoners at the Jail of Montreuil. You will follow every rule and every order given to you by a guard to the letter or you will be punished. Abuse of power will not be allowed and so if there is any inappropriate order given or action taken, trust that it will be dealt with."

Of course Madeleine would go about reassuring the prisoners! That was not how it was supposed to work. They did not need to know that any misconduct on the part of the guards would be dealt with! It was not always, in Javert's experience, despite his numerous reports on the matter and he was sure that it would be different here but either way there was no need to worry about comforting the lowest of the low. Neither he nor anyone else playing prisoner actually fit that category but the whole point of pretending was to do it right since there was so much that they would already need to change.

"Punishment can either be time in solitary confinement or handed out at the discretion of the guards," Madeleine continued. Javert supposed that he would be acting as the warden, then. "You will be placed in cells with two other prisoners after you have been thoroughly searched and given your prisoner uniform. But first, Monsieur Motte will read the rules to you. The rules will be read again once you are placed in your cells but after that you are expected to remember them."

Motte stepped up and cleared his throat. He looked a little smug to have been chosen though he was only one of three of the men chosen besides Javert who could read and one was a fellow prisoner while another was not present.

"Rule number one: prisoners must remain silent during rest periods, after lights out, during meals and whenever they are outside the prison yards. Rule number two: prisoners must eat at mealtimes and only at mealtimes. Rule number three: prisoners must participate in all prison activities. Rule number four: prisoners must keep their cells clean at all times. Rule number five: prisoners must not move, tamper with, deface or damage walls, ceiling, windows, doors, or any prison property. Rule number six: prisoners must address each other by number only. Rule number seven: prisoners must always address the guards as 'M. Correctional Officer' and the warden as 'M. Chief Correctional Officer.' Rule number eight: prisoners must never refer to this as a test or anything that implies that it is not real. They are in prison until they are paroled. Rule number nine: All prisoners in a cell will stand whenever the Warden, the Prison Superintendent or any other visitors arrive on the premises. Prisoners will await an order to be seated and resume activities. Rule number ten: prisoners must report all rule violations to the guards."

Ten rules. That was a nice, even number.

Javert appreciated that the rules were so plainly stated. It had sometimes happened that men were punished for violating rules that they had never been informed of and that was simply not just. It was up to the prisoners to remember the rules but they could not reasonably be expected to obey until they were told. Some rules were obvious and common sense such as not destroying the prison but addressing each other only by number was not something that they would automatically understand. He would not have thought to do that since in Toulon numbers and names were both used (though numbers were more common from the guards who could not be expected to know everyone's name but could always see their number).

Javert thought the first two rules sensible but was not certain what 'prison activities' the rules referred to. Cells were not kept clean at Toulon but it was a far bigger place and nothing there was particularly clean so that was not surprising. Here for two weeks? They would not be sentenced to hard labor and so it was an easy enough request. They would not like to live in filth if they could avoid it.

It did make sense that they could only refer to each other by number and so Javert made a note to only think of his fellow prisoners as their number once they had been assigned. It had never been done that way in Toulon but in Toulon a short sentence was three years and no one could avoid being made to feel like a prisoner. Here Madeleine only had two weeks to create a prison experience for them and so stripping them of their names would be a quicker way to achieve that. In fact, this was actually quite brilliant and Madeleine was to be commended for it. Perhaps once the test was done he would mention that.

'M. Correctional Officer' meant that they did not have to learn all the guards' names and addressing them by name would be inappropriate for someone in their position anyway. Javert knew all the names but that was because he had selected them. If there was to be any chance of this little test being at all useful then of course they had to treat it as if it were real and not discuss that it was just a test. He should probably try to stop thinking of it as something that was not real, too, though he could not always help his thoughts.

It was perfectly proper to stand when in the presence of a superior unless invited to take a seat and the guards were most definitely a prisoners' superior. Javert rather doubted that the last rule would actually be followed by anyone except for him, who would have done it even without a stated rule. Nobody wanted to make enemies by informing on another or risk being informed on in turn when they were the ones to break the rules.

"Guards," Madeleine said pointedly before turning and walking away.

The person at the far right of the line was led away by three guards, leaving six still watching them. Javert waited in silence as, one by one, the prisoners in front of him were led away. They did not look much like prisoners dressed in their regular clothes even with their handcuffs on. They looked much more like recent arrests which, he supposed, they were and now it was time to make the transition. He was not a man arrested anymore but a man imprisoned. He had not had a trial but that was just one bit of the breaks in realism.

Then it was his turn and he was led away. He had not seen any of the other prisoners when they were finished as they were not brought back to the room they were in.

He had a sudden fear. Were they going to be shaved? That was possibly the most important thing to do in order to make a man into a prisoner, that and the prison garb. Technically there was nothing wrong with having a shaved head and it would grow back in time. Two weeks of even being in Toulon did not completely transform a man and this was far less. It was not vanity, exactly, that made him not want to do this. It was a powerful symbol and he fully appreciated it. He had no choice, however, if that was what was in store for him.

The two guards looked completely impassive. He was unceremoniously stripped of his clothes and shivered slightly at the chill in the room. He was patted down and they ensured that he was not concealing anything on his person. They let him stand there for perhaps longer than strictly necessary before they shoved a red dress at him and a red bonnet. The bonnet, at least, resembled what was worn in Toulon but a dress? A literal dress such that a woman would wear? What sort of trickery was this?

He stared at it uncomprehendingly for a moment.

"Put it on," Fevre ordered, pressing the cudgel against Javert's thigh.

This humiliation would not be as long-lasting as a shaved head and he did not see any scissors or razors around nor was there a barber.

He put it on and, through the strange burning sensation that he must be imagining, he noticed that it fit tolerably well.

A heavy chain was attached to his foot. He looked down and raised his leg experimentally. He hoped that this would not give him a limp that would interfere with doing his duties or make someone suspect that he was a convict the way that he had suspected Madeleine. He was still waiting for confirmation or denial about the Valjean matter and until he received it he had resolved to put it out of his mind.

"Now, Prisoner 22972, we will take you to your cell."

Javert repeated those numbers to himself silently with a shudder. He was now prisoner 22972. He did not remember the numbers of most of the men he had once guarded and 22972 was not a number that was familiar to him. If he had been number 24601 then he was going to have some problems with that. And come to think of it that would probably answer his Valjean question, not that that sort of thing would count as evidence. But it had not been 24601, it was 22972. He was going to have to get used to being called that as no one was ever going to address him as anything else while he was here. Or at least they should not.

Gautier laughed. "No need to get so dramatic, 22972. It's just a number."

Part of Javert was annoyed that he would say something like that since he clearly had no idea of the power of a number the way Javert did. And he had only ever seen it secondhand so it was possible that he was about to become even more aware of the power that stripping a name and assigning a number wielded over a person. Another part of him was pleased to see that he was being treated like he imagined the others were being treated. It had taken a lot of convincing for the men chosen to be potential guards to accept that they would not be in any sort of legal trouble for acting as though Javert really were the prisoner he had signed up to be. He wanted to focus on that but he really shouldn't have thought of it in the first place.

Javert said nothing and was led back to a long hallway that opened up to three cells. He was placed in the middle one and two men were already there.

"Who are you?" Javert asked immediately. He could hardly not think of them by their actual names until he had something else to call them.

One of them looked confused. "You know me. I'm G-"

"That is against the rules," Javert hissed.

The other one rolled his eyes. "Really? I can understand the guards not wanting us to break the rules but does it really matter so much here?"

Javert stared impassively at him.

"I know that you're an inspector and whatnot," the first continued. "But these aren't actually real laws."

"Your numbers," Javert said pointedly. "And do not refer to outside things like that." He hoped that by not directly calling it an experiment he was not breaking the rules himself.

The first man sighed. "44102."

"50765," the other one reported.

"And I'm-" Javert started to say but was interrupted.

"Sorry," 44102 said. "That was 44142 not 44012."

"You said 44102," 50765 corrected.

"Well it wasn't either of those, it was 44142," 44142 insisted.

"Are you sure this time?" Javert asked, his eye dangerously close to twitching. How could he not remember a simple five numbers? Especially such an important string of numbers! Convicts always learned theirs quickly even if they could not read the digits imprinted on…Wait. He glanced at 44142's dress and saw that the number he was currently claiming was written right there. "Yes, that appears to be the number."

"How do you know?" 50765 asked.

"It says so on our…uniforms," Javert said a bit distastefully.

"That would certainly be a help if I could read," 44142 said, glancing down.

Most of the guards couldn't read, either, but Motte could and so could…he craned his neck until he could make out the '62284' on the other literate prisoner's dress.

"You didn't tell us your number," 50765 reminded him.

"I'm 22972," Javert introduced himself.

Fevre, Dubos, and Lavaud escorted the last prisoner to his cell and then stood there watching them.

"So now what?" Fevre asked blankly.

"Now we wait here until the afternoon shift comes to replace us," Dubos replied.

"We're really lucky that we don't have the night shift. And the afternoon shift has some late hours, too. We got the best assignment, that's for sure," Lavaud added.

"And that's even before you consider the fact that we don't even have a full shift today since we didn't get here at eight but still get to leave at four," Dubus added, grinning.

"I know that and it's nice but are we really just supposed to stand here until four?" Fevre demanded.

"We have to feed them at noon," Lavaud offered.

"And what do we do until then? And after then? I wish that we were actually doing something instead of just standing around," Fevre complained.

"We could always talk," Dubos suggested.

Fevre snorted. "I have never been seized by the desire to talk for eight hours straight. And even with the shortened shift and lunch break, I highly doubt I will find myself that interested in talking or listening."

"We could always just stare at the prisoners," Dubos said matter-of-factly. "I believe that's why we're here."

"Staring at the same people eight hours a day for two weeks?" Lavaud asked distastefully. "That's…nearly five days of non-stop staring. I think I would hate them by the end."

"It could be worse," Dubos pointed out. "We could be the prisoners and have to stay here for everyone's shift and only getting to escape through sleep."

"I'd feel a lot more sympathy if we weren't stuck here for the next few hours as well," Fevre said dryly.

Javert turns his attention away from the guards when he hears his name. "Don't say that!"

"You weren't responding to your number," 50765 tells him.

Javert looks down, annoyed. He needs to be more receptive to his number now.

"The guards are right," 44142 tells him. "We need to do something or we'll go mad. I wonder what real prisoners do?"

"They labor," Javert said shortly. "And don't-"

"I know, I know," 44142 cuts him off with a sigh. "I just wish that they didn't make us wear these dresses. I feel like a damn woman!"

"I rather imagine that was the point," Javert replied. "We are to be reminded that we are no longer honest men and are being justly punished by the government for our crime. Our hair has been spared and we are to be adorned as women are."

"You are way too involved in this," 50765 says bluntly.

Javert just sighed and wished that his cellmates would have just a smidge more realism themselves.

He had never seen a prisoner confess about another in front of everyone else even if there were so few prisoners here that they all knew him and would not only probably expect him to confess already but also realize instantly who it was that told on them should the fact they were told on get revealed. He had to do this right.

He waited until they were removed from their cells to eat sitting or standing in the hallway the guards occupied. He quietly let one of the guards know about the blatant rule-breaking but the guard had just laughed. Then they had a few more long, boring hours with nothing to do but talk. They could easily speak to those in different cells but it was less convenient and if more than one conversation was occurring at a time it could be harder. In the middle cell, Javert could have spoken to anyone but if two people wanted to converse from the two cells on either side of his then it might be more difficult.

They had lined up to do a count a few times but it was clear that nobody was taking it very seriously except for Javert himself. It might be a little early to declare this a win for his belief but this sort of behavior never went on in Toulon.

Fevre, Lavaud, and Dubos were replaced by Perrin, Gautier, and Motte presumably at four and then they were fed dinner awhile later. The food was nothing special, just some bread and beans for both means and it was enough to fill them up.

They were given two thin blankets each awhile after dinner and they all placed one of them on the floor to lie down on in lieu of a mattress and used the other to cover themselves. He wondered if the floor would be more or less comfortable than a wooden mattress. He could see it going either way. If it was more comfortable (and probably cleaner) than the floor then it would make it easier for convicts to sleep though they had no need for comfort. If it was less comfortable then the convicts would still sleep there because they were not permitted to sleep on the floor as it made it harder to tell just by walking by if they were still in their cell. It would not bother him if the planks were less comfortable than the floor as surely it was just chance and the convicts never seemed to have any problem sleeping apart from the first few weeks when they had plenty of other worries and complaints to keep them awake.

Since they had done little but talk all day, it was silent when they all laid down and a few of the candles were extinguished. Javert closed his eyes and was not sure if the others were having difficulty sleeping. He eschewed luxury on principle even without the fact that he could hardly afford such frivolities. Still, he usually slept better than this and it took him a long time to drift off to sleep.

\----

Javert's eyes snapped open and his hand fumbled for the cudgel that was not there. He was already sitting up and looking around for the source of the loud noise that had awoken him when he remembered where he was and what he was doing. He had not gotten very much sleep and felt extremely groggy but he had had need to fight through the grogginess and react quickly in the past.

His head turned towards the source of the noise. The three guards were banging loudly on the bars of their cell with their cudgels.

One of the prisoners (he could not be sure who) let out a long string of curses.

"What are you even doing?" 50765 demanded, hiding his head under one of the blankets.

"It's time for a count," Perrin said impassively.

"While we're sleeping? Are you serious?" another prisoner asked.

"Yes. Now get up and file into the hall," Perrin said as he began to unlock the cell doors.

Javert was the first one into the hallway and promptly took his place in line.

Some of the others filed out but others refused to get up.

No matter how many times the guards told them to move, they just wouldn't. Javert thought he heard the telltale signs of at least one of them falling back asleep though how that was possible with all of this noise he really had no idea.

He did not understand what the point of having a count in the middle of the night when they were all clearly asleep was. Maybe it would make more sense after he got some more sleep.

Frustrated, Gautier pulled one of the supine prisoners up by force and shoved him into the hallway.

"Careful!" Motte exclaimed. "You know that we're not supposed to-"

"I'm not harming them," Gautier interrupted. "I'm just getting him on his feet again. And what's the alternative? Letting him lie there all day?"

"We could always put him in solitary," Perrin suggested. "That is what that is for."

"We cannot put three of them in there at once," Gautier disagreed. "And good luck getting him there if we can't even make him stand up! Now help me with the other two."

One of them got up on his own after that but the other one had to be pushed into the hallway.

Next the guards tried to get them to count off but this was the eleventh time they had been asked to do that and they had just been woken up in the middle of the night (well, probably. There were no windows so who knew what time it really was? All they knew was that it was not enough time after they had first fallen asleep) and so it was going even slower than normal with the prisoners save Javert being quite uncooperative.

"That is it," Gautier said finally, losing his patience. He shoved 87580 down onto the floor. "I'm still not harming him. Now pay attention." He got down on the ground himself and slowly raised himself up with his arms and lowered himself back down again. Then he stood up. "Do you see what I did? I want you to do twenty of those for me."

87580 stared up at him. "You can't be-"

"You can either do them now or I can sit on you until you decide to do them," Gautier threatened. "And then you'll be doing them with me sitting on you."

Still 87580 stared at him and Gautier moved over to him and made to sit down and 87580 quickly tried to mimic the guard's earlier movements but he was having difficulty.

Javert just shook his head. It sounded like Madeleine had forbade them from disciplining them as discipline would be administered in Toulon. Of course it was right and proper that the lash or the rack not be used here but there were to be no cudgel blows? Javert would not pretend that he sought out such a punishment but he had faith that he would not do anything to need punishment while he was here. It was frankly pitiful that the guards were reduced to forcing people to push themselves up off of the ground a few times to try and discipline them if the offense was not so great as to necessitate solitary. No wonder these new guards had had so much difficulty! Even when he was first starting out as a guard of men far viler than these, he had not had half of the difficulty controlling them. Though they soon came to realize that he would not punish without just cause, they all knew to fear the cudgel's blow which could strike out at a moment's notice.

"You're not doing them right," Gautier said critically. "I won't count those last two. Your ass is supposed to be flat not sticking up in the air like some wanton whore's."

87580 flushed. "This isn't easy!"

"It's not supposed to be. It's a punishment," Gautier told him. "Now quit talking and keeping pushing yourself up."

Slowly, the prisoner kept pushing himself up. His arms were shaking by the time that Gautier had decided that he had done twenty of those movements properly. Javert was not precisely counting but he would guess that perhaps there were thirty-five or so attempts made.

Finally, 87580 was allowed to stand and join the others.

This time the count-off went much more smoothly.

But when they were returned to their cells, there was the mutter of discontentment. These guards had brought cards and found a table and chairs from somewhere and were not paying a great deal of attention to what the prisoners were doing as long as they were safe in their cells.

"This isn't right," 71428 seethed. "We are men, not some sort of animals! We signed up for this!"

"We are not to mention that," Javert said automatically.

The others glared at him. Well, they weren't and it was not as if Javert was unused to his position making him unpopular in society. Fortunately winning friends was not his intention in joining the police.

"Think about it, though," 62284 said seriously. "This is just the first night. We have thirteen more days of at least this and it may even get worse as they get more used to being guards."

"I can't take fourteen days of this," 46663 said wearily, rubbing a hand across his face.

"What do you want to do, quit?" 87580 asked derisively. "After only a day? That's pathetic."

Javert once again reminded them not to speak of the test (one did not 'quit' prison even if one attempted to escape) before lying down again and trying to get back to sleep.

No one else seemed particularly interested in trying to get their rest even though they had no idea if there would be another count or an early wake-up. Javert let the once-familiar sound of grumbling prisoners lull him to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Javert awoke to the sound of chaos.

"You let us in here right now!" a guard shouted.

"Never!" one of the prisoners shouted back.

Javert was never one for creature comforts but it had been many years since he had not had a bed at night and so his sleep was not the best, particularly as it had been interrupted at some point for the count. Still, he pushed his grogginess inside and quickly got to his feet.

"It's about time you woke up!" 44142 exclaimed.

"What is going on?" Javert demanded. The prisoners had all torn off their numbers and their bonnets had been cast aside.

"We are rebelling," 50765 said as if it were obvious.

Which, given the guards banging on the doors and demanding to be let in and the prisoners refusing, it sort of was.

But just because he could see what was happening did not mean that it made any particular sense. Why were they rebelling? It had been less than a day and this wasn't even really something that they would need to rebel against. He knew that he was not supposed to think of the fact that they were not actually in prison but the fact remained that they were not actually in prison so why were they rioting? Why not just ask to leave if they were having such a problem with this? Surely Madeleine would not deny them this given the fact that he had already gone through such lengths to reassure them as well as his general Madeleine-ness. He could not point this out to them, of course, given that that would be against the rules.

At this point, it would probably be a little too late to point out to them that their actions were idiotic and just hope that they would see sense and stop the rebellion. Rebellions were always punished and they would probably know that. They wouldn't want to capitulate to the angry guards. But the longer the rebellion went on the angrier the guard would be and the worse their punishment would be. It was logical to surrender immediately but he had seen enough of prison's attempting to rebel (whether on their own or in groups) to understand that there was something about them that just could not accept their just punishment and forced them to try and defer said punishment forever.

It never worked.

They had to know that it would never work. If nothing else they could simply be starved into submission and starving men could not put up a fight. He could understand not wanting to face angry guards but they really should have thought of that before provoking them.

And then there was the fact that it had been less than a day that they were in here! Perhaps Javert understood these things better with his experience as a prison guard than these men who had never had reason to see the angry face of society that was called Justice but they really were overreacting. None of the prisoners he had seen who had been kept in chains for several weeks before being submitted to a month-long journey through the elements chained to each other in a cart while jeering and laughing crowds taunted them and threw things at them before being shaved, given a number, and struck when they did not satisfactorily comply with hard labor specifically designed to sap every ounce of energy from them (which most new prisoners could not do at first) ever rebelled so quickly. Perhaps part of it was that they had not the energy for it while here the prisoners had really had nothing to do but think about how inconvenient this was.

He could not say their situation was horrible, not when he had seen true – though just – horribleness, but these men lacked the sense of perspective that the men of Toulon quickly gained.

Still, he had to say something. "Why are you rebelling?"

"I do hope you mean 'we'," 44142 told him.

Javert scowled. "If I had meant 'we' then I would have said 'we.'"

"Javert-" 50765 started to say.

"It's 22972," Javert snapped.

"Oh, no, we are not going to play their games and call you by a number during our rebellion!" 44142 snapped. "My name is Guerin and you can damn well call me that!"

"Yes," 50765 agreed. "I'm Faure."

"I am not a part of your rebellion and I demand that you call me 22972," Javert said flatly.

50765 laughed harshly. "It's not like you can make us, Javert."

Javert seethed but did not further comment on that. He had more important worries than what these men called him. "Why are you rebelling?"

44142 stared incredulously at him. "Surely you do not need to ask that!"

"If I did not need to ask that then I wouldn't," Javert replied archly. "I am not in the habit of wasting people's time with unnecessary questions, however much free time we may have here."

"Fine, if you truly need to ask then it is because our situation here is intolerable," 44142 declared.

"It's been less than a day."

"What does that matter?" 44142 demanded. "If our situation is intolerable today then it will not get any better for the rest of our time here. Should we wait a week and then would we have suffered enough to justify rebellion in your eyes?"

"Nothing ever justifies rebelling against proper authorities," Javert said immediately. "But I find it even more difficult to accept when it occurs within a year of incarceration."

Even Valjean had managed to wait four years before embarking on his repeated escape attempts.

"Well we don't need your approval," 50765 said testily. "Why should we suffer like this for a year before we rebel?"

He seemed to be forgetting the fact that they weren't even going to be here for anything close to an entire year.

"You really think this is suffering?" Javert couldn't believe it. "I have seen nothing that comes anywhere close to what I would define as 'suffering.'"

"Then clearly you just don't properly appreciate the term and have too high of a threshold," 50765 replied.

Javert would bet that it was really the other way around.

"We are locked in these cages like animals, can only leave when we're given permission, must count off a good six times a day, are completely under the power of the guards…it's monstrous!" 50765 complained.

"I've seen worse," Javert said curtly, trying to imagine how blissful the prisoners at Toulon would be at receiving this kind of treatment. It just went to show that honest men were not meant for prison conditions; they tended to overreact. Still, while he had been wrong that they would not try to escape their situation that was no reason to think that they would change. If an honest man found himself unjustly in a bad situation (and this situation, while agreed to, had not been earned) then they would naturally attempt to correct things.

Javert looked around. He was the only prisoner who was not standing pressed up against the door and using all of his strength to keep it closed. That made his cell the easier to attempt to open and so the three guard were pushing hard at their door. Three attempting to open against two attempting to keep it shut. The other prisoners remained against their door in case the guards took a lack of readiness as a sign to attempt to open their door instead. The guards were, on occasion, able to open the door a little but not enough to slip inside and the prisoners soon got the door shut again.

"You could help us," 44142 said pointedly.

"I could," Javert agreed. "But I want no part of your rebellion."

"Listen to him," Despres urged. "You're only making things worse for yourself."

"Sure we are," 46663 sneered. "Our situation is intolerable so we should therefore open the door and return to that situation or you'll make it worse for us? Such threats only convince me that we are doing the right thing and should never open!"

"Sooner or later you'll need to eat," Javert pointed out.

"Perhaps," 46663 allowed. "But not right now I don't!"

"You need to stop this," Carton said, frustrated.

"All we were trying to do was count you off, this is ridiculous!" Bertrand added.

"Count this!" 71428 cried out. Javert could not see what he did but the guards looked irritated.

"What, you really need to count us off again? We haven't left the cells. How stupid are you that you forgot how many of us there are?" 87580 demanded.

"And you can't even manage to count us without us getting in line. There are only nine of us!" 23344 added.

"You guys are really stupid."

"No wonder you were chosen to be the night shift, it's not like you've got anything else going on."

"You were only chosen to be guards because you didn't have what it takes to be anything else!"

On and on it went, the insults and taunts of varying quality. It was starting to give Javert a headache and the guards attempted to burst into the cell with renewed vigor.

"What's going on here?" Dubos demanded as he, Fevre, and Lavaud entered the room.

"What does it look like?" Carton snapped. "The prisoners are rebelling."

"After only one day?" Lavaud couldn't believe it. "How did you guys lose control over them so quickly? They were perfectly fine when we left."

"When you left it had only been four hours or so!" Despres said defensively.

"Not in front of the prisoners!" Fevre ordered. "Come, let's go sort this out."

"We can't just leave the prisoners alone," Dubos objected.

"Fine, you stay here and watch them – just watch them, don't try to stop them – and the rest of us will go figure this out," Fevre replied.

Dubos looked uneasy but he nodded.

The other five guards filed out.

"Does this mean that we've won?" 44142 asked hesitantly.

"Of course not," Dubos said angrily. "The others have just gone to try and find a way to break this rebellion."

"And if they can't find a way?" 87580 asked pointedly.

"Then we starve you out," Dubos said simply. "This is just trying to save us some time. Nobody wants a futile rebellion like this to go on any longer than it has to."

"Don't listen to him," 50765 said. "He's a guard, of course he'd say that. He'd say that no matter what was true. And I don't see how they're going to be able to come up with anything. We won't surrender."

"Brave words," Javert said coolly. "But hunger can conquer any army."

Dubos sighed and shook his head. "I should have known you'd be the only reasonable one, 22972."

The other prisoners glared at him but he did not mind.

\----

Valjean had not expected one of his 'guards' to barge into his office and insist that he come with him because there was a problem over at the prison. He had been immediately concerned that someone had gotten hurt and so hurried after Bertrand.

The situation was rather different than what he had been expecting.

"This is all your fault," Lavaud accused.

"Just how do you suppose it's our fault?" Carton demanded. "We didn't do anything wrong!"

"You must have. The prisoners weren't rioting when we left and I'm sure you would have mentioned it if the prisoners had been rioting when you arrived," Lavaud replied. "But even then that meant you would have let rioting go on for eight more hours so you wouldn't have looked any better there."

"Am I understanding this correctly?" Valjean asked. "The prisoners are rioting?"

"They are Monsieur le Maire," Despres said apologetically. "We're sorry, we really have no idea how this happened."

"It is perfectly natural for men imprisoned to seek a way out of that prison," Valjean said calmly. "They will act even when all reason bids them not to. I had not expected a rebellion so quickly but that goes back to the lack of reason."

It was for the best, perhaps, because if they had waited until actual prisoners rebelled then the test would long be over. He wondered what Javert would make of all of this given that they both knew what real prisoners suffered and how tame this current experiment was in comparison. Would it be enough to get him to start to acknowledge what prison did to a man? Somehow he found that doubtful.

"And they must have been provided with some means to try!" Fevre accused.

"What are you talking about?" Bertrand asked. "They're still in their cells. We gave them no opportunity to escape from those."

"But you did give them an opportunity to riot," Fevre pointed out.

"And how, exactly, were we supposed to not do that?" Bertrand demanded. "How were we supposed to stop them from suddenly deciding at count not to come out of their cells like they were supposed to but instead to barricade the doors and stay in their cells?"

"It couldn't have been that sudden, don't be naïve," Lavaud replied. "They weren't all just going to spontaneously decide to get up and barricade the door. They must have been planning it. You didn't keep them busy enough or tired enough to not plan it and you failed to listen to their plans."

"We can't stop them from whispering!" Despres objected.

"Sure you can," Lavaud disagreed. "Just punish them when they are and do not let them get close enough to each other that you cannot tell that they are whispering. It's easy enough to fake sleep and think of how many plans could have been hatched last night as they did so."

Valjean decided that enough was enough. "I understand your frustration," he broke in, "but there is really no point in assigning blame. Perhaps those suggestions of yours will be of use in the future, Lavaud, but for right now we need to focus on ending the rebellion so that we may continue with this."

Fevre nodded. "Excellent thinking, Monsieur le Maire. What do you suggest?"

But Valjean shook his head. "I am not a guard. It is not for me to put down this rebellion. You will have to devise your own ways."

In addition to what he said, he was not actually sure how to non-violently put down a rebellion in a way that did not involve starving them.

It was silent for a few moments as the guards thought.

"We could always drug their food or perhaps their wine," Bertrand suggested finally.

"Don't be a fool," Carton scoffed. "Prisoners don't get wine. They certainly didn't last night."

Real prisoners did, in fact, get plenty of watered-down wine and taking it away was a common punishment. They were not receiving wine here, however, only water.

"They would be suspicious," Carton continued. "They'd be suspicious if we fed them today after threatening to starve them out if we had to. At least Javert would."

Valjean considered reminding him that the prisoners were to be addressed only by their numbers but decided that since no prisoners were here to hear this it was fine.

"Javert's not helping out with the rebellion, though," Despres pointed out. "He keeps letting the others know that they are being foolish and it won't work. He suggested they surrender and doesn't think they should have tried rebelling so soon."

Valjean fought the urge to smile. That did rather sound like his inspector.

"But he would still suspect," Carton insisted. "Perhaps he would not warn the others but would his dedication to justice compel him to knowingly eat drugged food so that the others would not be suspicious? I am not so sure."

"It's not worth the risk," Fevre agreed.

"Then what do we do?" Lavuad asked.

It was quiet again.

"We could use force," Fevre suggested at last.

"We're not allowed to harm the prisoners, though," Despres pointed out. "I…heard that one of the afternoon guards had one of the prisoners push himself up off of the ground and threatened to sit on him if he did not comply. Is that acceptable? Would actually sitting on him be acceptable?"

Valjean thought about it. He could appreciate the immensely difficult position he had put the guards in by not allowing them to use real force. He had been so concerned about the abuses that had occurred in Toulon, even just a fraction of them, enfolding here in Montreuil. These good men did not deserve that. No one deserved that and certainly not these people. He could not even offer any useful suggestions since the punishment that he had faced and remembered was always of a physical nature.

"I suppose that would be acceptable," Valjean said slowly. "So long as there is no striking for not being able to do as many of these as you would like or going too slowly or refusing outright."

Bertrand looked disappointed. "We will manage. Thank you, Monsieur le Maire. We really need some sort of effective punishment to use, especially once we manage to put this rebellion down."

"Do not abuse it," Valjean warned.

"We won't," promised Carton.

"I did not mean hitting them," Fevre declared. "I was thinking that if the night guards agree to stay and we bring in the reserve guards then we should have nine of us for nine of them. The cells each only have three, or two in Javert's cell, people manning the door. There is no way we will not be able to overpower them and get into the cell and then subdue them there."

"I like it," Lavaud said slowly. "But just because there are nine of us does not mean that the door is big enough for nine people to push. It would be different if we were pulling, perhaps."

"We have to get the prisoners away from the door," realized Despres.

"I like it," Carton said, grinning.

"But how are we going to do that? We've been trying since before that lot even got here," Bertrand pointed out, nodding at the morning guards.

"Someone go get the reserve guards," Carton ordered.

"There are three of them, let us have three of us go and that way we can be back quicker," Fever suggested.

That was found to be agreeable so three of them set off to go find the three reserve guards. Valjean wondered if they would even come as their presence was not required. He valiantly resisted the efforts of the two remaining guards to convince him to give them ideas about how to put down the riot. It was not his job, he did not have any ideas, and he felt a certain reluctance to help crush a prisoner revolt, too. It was not rational, strictly speaking, but it was there nonetheless.

Finally, six guards returned in pairs of two.

"I have had an idea," Carton announced.

"Do tell," Lavaud invited.

"Let's throw water on the prisoners so that they stop pushing against the door and let us in," Carton continued.

Despres was unimpressed. "How would that even work? We get water in their eyes so that they can't see? We throw so much they can't breathe?"

"Oh you of such little faith," Carton chided him. "I am thinking we should have two buckets of water for each cell. The first one is hot and then it will make it even more unbearable when he quickly throw the cold water on them."

"But won't that hurt them?" Fevre asked with a nervous look at Valjean.

"I wasn't thinking the water would be dangerously hot, just unpleasant and enough to change their temperature enough so that the cold water would have more of an effect and distract them from keeping us out," Carton quickly explained.

"I will have to feel the temperature of these waters for myself," Valjean decided.

\----

Javert was almost relieved when the guards came back in (there were eight now? It would appear that they had reached out to the reserve guards and perhaps Madeleine had had a point about designating reserve guards). Perhaps now this madness would end.

Dubos, who had been forced to listen to their abuse only since the other guards had left, looked almost painfully glad to see them again. "Buckets?"

Javert stood up and saw that the guards were indeed carrying buckets. How strange. He decided to move to the back of the cell. Whatever the guards were planning, he would like to be well out of the way for it.

"What are you going to do with that?" 24405 asked. "Hit us with it?"

The guards didn't reply. Four of them set down their buckets and they approached Javert's cell. One of them threw the contents of his bucket (which appeared to be water) at the 50765 and 44142.

50765 hissed in pain.

"Don't move," 44142 ordered.

"Do you think I'm stupid?" 50765 demanded. "I know they'll just-"

He was cut off as a second bucket of water was flung at them. They tried to stay near the door but they couldn't help jerking back for a moment and the guards took advantage of their distraction to push into the room.

Javert watched as the guards pushed into the cell and reattach the numbers and bonnets to their proper prisoner.

"One of you stay in here," Carton ordered. "We don't want them barricading the door again the moment we leave."

Dubos stayed behind in that cell. He glanced at Javert. "You really could not be less interested in this rebellion, could you?"

"I could not," Javert confirmed calmly.

"Traitor," 44142 hissed.

"How am I a traitor?" Javert inquired, raising an eyebrow. "I never pretended to be on your side and you must have known that I would never be or you wouldn't have hid your planning from me."

His two cellmates glared at him but said nothing.

Though the prisoners in the other two cells knew what was coming now, they proved no more adept at resisting it than 50765 and 44142 had been. Javert impassively observed the two buckets of water being thrown and the prisoners losing focus long enough for the guards to push their way in.

Once the cells were all successfully sieged, the guards began to strip them all naked.

The prisoners resisted but there was now one guard for every prisoner and the prisoners were all demoralized that their attempt had failed and so the guards carried the day in the end.

Javert was fiercely tempted to resist when it was his turn but he fought the urge down. He had not had anything to do with the rebellion but he had not actually tried to stop them with more than words. And it would set a bad example if one of the prisoners was not punished. Wasn't it the case in Toulon that when one convict attacked the other both were punished?

And he had not yet forgotten the horribly demeaning fact that he was wearing a woman's dress. He stood there passively, trying not to tremble, as they removed his dress, lifting his arms when they bid him to.

And then he was standing there bare, surrounded by eight other men equally naked and nine men decidedly clothed. He had been bare before other men before as a child but it had been some time. He did not look and hoped that they would not either and that the guards would not. He felt painfully exposed, even more so than he would have thought after being relieved of those horrible garments. And why was it that he suddenly felt cold all over? The dress was not much protection against the elements and parts of him that had never been covered were cold, too, when that did not make sense.

It was hard to pay attention but he was vaguely aware that the uniforms and blankets had been removed and 44142 and 62284 had been taken out of their cells and then the door was shut.

"The ringleaders will go into solitary," Carton announced, placing the two naked prisoners in that confined space together and shutting the door. The two had struggled but to little effect. From what Javert had been able to judge, the solitary confinement area (which really should just have one prisoner at a time) was really only big enough for the one. It would be a very uncomfortable experience for these two men. If this had been Toulon, he would have had to fear that their nakedness and general degenerateness would mean that they had to worry that the two would be fucking but these were good men. Impatient and rash, perhaps, but they would not resort to that.

"We appreciate your help," Dubos told the guards not assigned to work then. "I think we have got it from here, however."

"Are you sure?" Despres asked uncertainly. "What if they just rebel again?"

"Then we'll just keep breaking in. They won't now that they know that we can beat them," Lavaud said confidently.

"And we know what we're doing," Fevre said pointedly.

Bertrand's eye twitched. "What was that?"

"Not now," Dubos said tiredly. "I'm sure you night guards need your rest and the reserves have other business to attend to."

Six of the guards departed leaving three still there.

Javert was debating the merits of sitting down or trying to cover himself when suddenly the door to his cell swung open.

"This is going to be the privileged cell," Fevre announced. "The prisoners who were least involved with the rebellion will go in here. That's 22972, of course, as well as…let's see…23344 and 87580."

Those two prisoners were removed from their cells and placed in Javert's while 50765 was put in the next cell over.

"What do you mean by 'privileged' cell?" 87580 asked suspiciously.

"We're giving you your uniforms and blankets back," Dubos explained. "You will also have your bedding returned to you tonight and will get to wash up and have breakfast."

When the dress was tossed to him, Javert could not put it on fast enough. He flushed at the thought of how eager he was to be dressed as a woman but, ultimately, what he was being given to wear did not matter so much as the fact that he was to be allowed to wear anything at all.

Two of the guards stayed with the other prisoners while he, 87580, and 23344 were led to a washbasin. Javert eagerly washed his face and part of his body and then went back to his cell to find breakfast waiting for him there. It was better food than he had had yesterday.

The three of them were quite hungry, despite the protestations that had been made during the riot, and so they began eating voraciously.

"I can't believe you," 50765 said, judgment in his eyes.

"Can't believe what?" 87580 asked between bites.

"How can you just sit there dressed and eating and leave us like this?" 50765 demanded.

"I mean, I get why 22972 is doing it but you two?" 46663 asked, his eyes narrowed. "And with 44142 and 62284 in solitary, too!"

"It's not our fault that they're in solitary or that you weren't given anything," 23344 pointed out. "I don't see why we should have to go without just because you're in trouble."

"The only reason that you're getting this special treatment in the first place is because you didn't do enough to help out!" 71428 accused.

"Hey," 87580 objected, waving a bit of bread at them. "We did plenty to help out. They just wanted to find the ones who were the least involved and there are always going to be some people who are most involved and least involved no matter how much or how little any group of people does things. I think that 24405 would have been a better choice for least involved than me but it wasn't up to me."

"And you're just going to receive their comfort when you know we can't," 24405 said bitterly.

"I think we are," 23344 said and then he and 87580 went back to their breakfast and ignored any other accusations or questions.

That only intensified the glares from the other prisoners but it did not matter and only reinforced Javert's belief that it would have been better if nobody had foolishly tried to rebel in the first place.


	4. Chapter 4

Being in the privileged cell was actually not that much different from being in the regular cells the day before. Lunch was better than it was the day before but, really, Javert had never been very particular about his food.

Still, he had only to glance over at the other cells to see the sullen and naked prisoners and feel very, very fortunate that he was in privileged cell and not humiliated like they were. The guards had turned nasty at some point, making pointed comments about the prisoners and how hopeless their lot was.

The other prisoners were muttering bitterly to each other and 23344 and 87580 were mostly ignoring Javert and talking to each other. It would seem that, fellow privileged prisoner or not, he was still being looked down upon for his complete and utter lack of support for their ill-fated rebellion.

Perrin approached the door of the cell. "Alright, we're going to give everyone their clothes back."

There was a general murmur of approval and Motte and Gautier quickly passed the dresses and bonnets to the prisoners in the two non-privileged cells.

Once everyone was dressed, Perrin smiled pleasantly at them. "We are going to need to change up who is in which cells."

Javert looked at him in confusion. Again? He had not noticed there being any problem with the cell arrangements, particularly now that they were all properly clothed again. Well, perhaps 'properly' was too strong of a word. Were the guards just trying to make sure that there was no solidarity building up? That had broken down with the creation of the privileged cells, just as it was likely intended to. But maybe the guards were just exercising their power. There was nothing harmful about changing the cells the prisoners were in and so Javert did not see a problem with this.

Perrin opened the door to the privileged cell and led all three occupants out. In their place, he put prisoners 24405, 71428, and 50765.

Everyone was watching Perrin in confusion but he just smiled mysteriously and left it at that.

"I see what's going on," 44142 growled.

"Do enlighten us," 50765 invited. "Because I do not understand at all."

44142 laughed harshly. "Oh, I'm sure you don't! How is it that the three darlings who did not properly participate in our rebellion-"

"Hey, I did plenty!" snapped 87580.

"Were removed," 44142 continued, ignoring him, "and you three were put in their place?"

24405 sighed. "He already said that we don't know."

"Ah, but I think that you do know, you just were hoping that you wouldn't be caught and you must think we're extremely stupid if you thought that you could get away with that," 44142 said angrily.

"Don't keep us in suspense," Javert spoke up. "What do you think?"

"Well, 22972, I believe that these three newest favorites must be informers," 44142 explained.

"I-Informers?" 71428 sputtered. "You must be joking!"

"I don't think it's a joke," 62284 said quietly. "In fact, I think it makes an awful lot of sense. I don't know how useful they will be as informants in the future now that we all know but maybe they were useful in the past. Maybe they gave the guards information about our plans."

"How could we possibly have done that?" 22405 demanded.

"I don't know but that doesn't mean it didn't happen," 62284 said simply. "And I certainly do not know what happened while I was in solitary with 44142."

"I don't know about the others but I know that I definitely didn't inform about anyone!" 50765 burst out.

"What do you mean that you don't know about the others?" 71428 asked archly.

"Well I don't," 50675 said defensively.

"How can you not know?" 22405 asked.

"How can I be sure? I am sure of myself and 22972 since we told him nothing but anyone else, anyone else…" 50675 trailed off suggestively.

"Clearly only you three could possibly be traitors since if we were the informers then why wouldn't we be in the privileged cell?" 62284 asked.

Javert did not actually care one way or another but he did have an answer for this in the interest of further breaking down prisoner solidarity and hopefully preventing them from rebelling again. "If the three in the cell were informers then the fact they've been rewarded for this means that their use as informers is over since it is now obvious to everyone that they are informers. It would make far more sense for someone not in the privileged cell to be an informer to throw people off of the scent."

The greatest threat to a prisoner's life, Javert well knew, was from another prisoner. It was unlawful to execute a prisoner without express permission and if the prisoners had any regard for the law then they would not be prisoners in the first place. There were abuses with guards, of course, but rarely did those abuses lead to death because deaths had to be explained somehow and killing someone, even a convict, was more difficult than virtually anything else the guards could do to them. It went without saying that Javert did not participate in these abuses and stopped them where he could but most of it when on outside of his presence.

Prisoners, though…Prisoners knew very well the harsh punishment that they received for fighting. Javert did not actually know whether such things proved to be deterrents to the prisoners and he was not sure he cared to know. The fights were frequent enough that the fights that actually occurred were only a minority of fights that could occur was distressing but so was the notion that nothing could stop the prisoners from getting into pointless fights with each other.

They were all terrible people to begin with and all locked up together like that with nothing but toil and misery they only got worse. They had nothing to take their frustrations out on but each other as going after a guard was a good way to get executed. Deaths did happen. Oh, the guards tried to prevent it but prisoners could be so resourceful when they needed to be. They never bothered to use said resourcefulness to be honest men living a good life but they were all too willing to use it to kill.

These men here were not killers so he had nothing to fear from helping turn them against each other. But at any rate it was useful not to have them all united both against the guards and against him since, as a prisoner, he was never going to be able to be completely on their side. He wouldn't even be a successful informer if they continued not to discuss their secret plans with him. He was just not the spy type, really.

"That is a good point," 87580 mused.

"Or maybe it's just what he wants us to think because he's on their side! He might not have been an informer before but who here really thinks he won't inform on us now?" 24405 asked rhetorically.

No one said anything.

71428 sighed. "So once again we're sure of him and no one else except for ourselves."

It lapsed into silence after that.

\----

"Guard!" 44142 called out.

"What?" Carton snapped, walking over to his cell.

"I have to piss," 44142 informed him.

"That's nice," Carton said, starting to walk away.

"Wait a second, you can't just go!" 44142 objected.

"Can't I?"

"You have to let me relieve myself!" 44142 exclaimed.

"That's an interesting idea," Carton told him. "I wouldn't put too much stock in it, though."

"You let 50765 go!" 44142 said with an accusing glare at his former cellmate.

"50765 is a good prisoner in the privileged cell," Carton explained patiently. "If you wanted to be taken to relieve yourself on your schedule instead of mine then you really should have been a better prisoner."

"Just because I'm not a damn informer," 44142 muttered darkly.

"I'm not," 50765 insisted, annoyed. "You're just a troublemaker."

"You can't just not let me go!" 44142 protested again.

Bertrand laughed. "He's right, you know. You can't force him not to relieve himself. Of course, if he does that then that's all anybody will be smelling for quite some time."

"I so dislike the smell of piss," Carton drawled. "I would not recommend forcing me to endure it."

"But…" 44142 trailed off, quivering with rage.

23344 began to weep.

"Oh, what's the matter with you?" 44142 asked, irritated. "I'm the one who has been left to piss himself over here."

23344 appeared not to hear him and kept right on crying.

"That's really no way to go about doing this," Javert said critically. It had been less than two days! He knew that honest men were not intended for prison conditions but this was ridiculous. "If you were in Toulon, you might be beaten for this if your weeping interfered with your working. And even if it did not, it would certainly anger the other prisoners and they would turn on you. Not to mention that weeping marks you out as vulnerable prey and animals like that would soon tear you apart."

23344 could barely force out the words through his sobs but it was clear that he was angry. "What do you know about it? You act like you're so untouched, like you're better than us! Well you're not because you're here, too! You're not sitting about it untouched; you're right here in hell with us."

"This is hardly hell."

"You think so?" 23344 challenged, his tears subsiding somewhat. "Well let me tell you what I think. I think that all of this just adds to the noise, all of it. It keeps building and building until you can't even…and how are we supposed to get along sleeping on the floor like this? Will they even give us our blanket? Such a fine choice! Filthy floors, you would think they would at least be clean, and so we have the choice of clinging to pretend cleanliness or to have an extra blanket to throw over ourselves in the night or perhaps to serve as a pillow. They can't give us a real one, of course, wouldn't want us getting any ideas. Well I have some ideas and my ideas are that I need to get out of here. I don't care if I have to chew threw my leg to get out of these chains but I swear that I am going to do it. I have to do it or else I will burn. I will just burn and maybe we all will. Maybe we're already burning."

No one was quite sure what to say to that.

"And he has to be in my cell," 62284 complained finally. "With my luck, he probably will try to burn us all tonight."

"He doesn't have any matches," 87580 replied. "Probably."

"Does it even matter?" 62284 asked, making a face. "The crazy types always find a way."

"I'm not crazy," 23344 said, suddenly quite calm aside from the fact that his face was spasming. "We are in hell and I am the only sane one left. How can you just…you're all just sitting there like it's nothing and this is wrong. This is all wrong. I have to get out of here."

"Well how do you like that?" 71428 asked, sighing. "I should have been a guard. Would have been, too, if I was any bigger."

"What do you care?" 44142 demanded. "You're not even next to his cell!"

"I hardly think a fire is going to respect such distinctions," 71428 said wryly.

"He is right, though," 24405 said suddenly. "They're all so much bigger than us. It's not fair, having the prisoners dominated by the overly large guards. Isn't it enough that we're locked in here and they're armed?"

Javert eyed the guards carefully, trying to discern if they were really taller. Javert himself was a very tall man who was usually bigger than anyone else around. If it were based on that, why would he be a prisoner? Ah, but he had insisted, hadn't he? He did not think that Madeleine would sort people according to these things, especially as Javert was not convinced that Madeleine even knew who most of these people were before they had reported for duty. Well, the guards had reported anyway. It had gone…different for him and the other prisoners.

And yet, looking at them now, it seemed obvious that such size disparities could not happen solely based on chance. Strange how he had never noticed before how tall these guards were, how imposing.

"Giants," 23344 said dreamily. "Like the Giants of '93. I miss them. They were leading us to a glorious republic and the streets ran red with blood and then all of that was swept away by Napoleon. It was a nice empire, I think, but that's gone and there is a king now but then why all that blood if there was to be no republic?"

"Can't you do something about him?" 50765 requested, jerking his head at 23344 who had started to rock back and forth.

"Do what?" Bertrand asked.

"I don't know!" 50765 exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. "But surely he can't just be allowed to carry on like that! I'm starting to seriously worry about my own safety here."

"You should be fine in the privileged cell," Bertrand assured him.

"What about me and him?" 62284 asked. "We're in the same cell with him!"

"You might be in danger if 23344 were really crazy," Bertrand said indifferently.

"You don't believe him?" Javert asked, surprised.

Bertrand snorted. "Of course not. He's a prisoner, isn't he? He already talked a bunch about wanting to get out and now suddenly he's acting crazy? How stupid does he think we are? He's not even doing a good job of faking."

Javert had not considered that. In Toulon, people did not really fake being crazy, at least not as far as he had seen. They were too overwhelmed when they first arrived (unless they were a return guest in which case they already knew what to expect) and by the time they were all settled in they well-knew that they could expect blows for that sort of behavior. A man seeking to pretend to be mad would have to successfully hold to his story in the face of attempts to disprove their madness. Javert did not think that any of those animals had it within them to so convincingly feign madness.

But this was different. It had only been two days and the conditions really weren't all that bad. Was he faking? And he had to know that he would not be struck no matter what he did. Madeleine was going to be the death of prison discipline.

23344 ran for the bars suddenly and began to shake them. "You can't keep us prisoner! It's not right!" he screamed. "I want out of this! This isn't right. I haven't done anything wrong! You maggot-pie!"

Carton sighed. "See, now he's giving me a headache. Deal with him, would you?"

Bertrand shook his head. "Oh, fine." He opened the cell, grabbed 23344 rather roughly by the arm, and led him out of the room.

After a few minutes, Despres coughed. "I think I have time to take 44142 to relieve himself now."

44142 perked up immediately and Javert recognized that Despres was going to be one of those guards. His type never lasted long in Toulon. The prisoners sensed any sort of weakness, even a weakness that benefited them like kindness or sympathy, and they ripped people apart.

Carton shrugged. "Suit yourself. I wouldn't expend the effort."

"But you also do not want to have to smell it and there's only so long that a man can hold it," Despres reasoned and took 44142 away.

When 23344 was returned to the cell he was pale and trembling but given his behavior earlier that did not necessarily have to mean anything.

During the next count, he let out an achingly familiar laugh of excess emotions and told them that they couldn't leave and that this wasn't an experiment anymore.

Javert automatically told him not to mention that but he felt a chill. 23344 had evidently broken and begged to be released and yet he hadn't. That didn't sound like Madeleine's way, him and his damnable and excessive kindnesses. He would spare a whore from her just punishment but not a volunteer from something he had willingly entered into?

And yet it was plain to see that 23344 had not been released and that was the new reality.

23344 just smiled emptily and then lost all control.

\----

When Valjean arrived at the prison that night, he heard a terrible screaming, the likes of which he hadn't heard since Toulon.

"What is that?" he asked, greatly alarmed. "Has someone been abusing the prisoners? Has anyone been hurt?"

Carton looked offended at the very idea that he had been hurting the prisoners or allowing such things. "No, it's merely 23344."

"What's wrong with him?" Valjean asked. He did not remember who had been given that designation, just that it was not Javert.

"He's been trying to convince us that he's suffered some sort of…fit or something," Despres explained. "He's been at it for hours. I'm surprised he can still scream at this point."

"And why didn't you do anything?" Valjean demanded.

"What could we do?" Bertrand asked defensively. "You won't let us hit him to shut him up."

"Certainly not!" Valjean exclaimed. "A man like that doesn't need more punishment!"

"He's been carrying on like that for about two hours or so," Despres elaborated. "He's been screaming, cursing, in a rage…he was crying earlier and talking about I don't even know what. We don't know what to do."

"Bring him to me," Valjean instructed.

He did not know what to do, either, but as the mayor and man in charge of this little test anyone who was having a problem with it was his responsibility. In the end it did not even matter if this poor man was faking or if he had legitimately gone crazy. Oh, it mattered a great deal to the man, he supposed, and he would feel terrible if he had managed to drive some crazy through this but either way this man needed to be let out of here. If he was truly crazy or if he was just pretending to be let out, participation was entirely voluntary and they could all leave whenever they liked. He had thought they had known that. He hoped that this would not lead to a mass exodus (with everyone save Javert fleeing as he could not picture Javert running from what he thought was his duty no matter how onerous a duty it was) but he would respect it if it did.

The man that they brought to him was fighting every step of the way and had to be half-dragged by Despres and Carton. When they released him he fell to his knees in front of Valjean. He said nothing.

Valjean did not know his name but he would not address any man by a number, particularly not one who was in as bad condition as this.

He knelt down beside the man. "Are you alright?"

The man shook his head pitiably. "I want to die."

Valjean felt his heart clench. "You shall go home tonight."

The man raised his head and looked at him with such wonder that it was almost painful. "Really? I am really allowed to go?"

Now why did this seem so familiar? But this man was not wretched convict but an innocent caught up in a pretend prison. He had expected that there would be changes but nothing like this and certainly not so soon! What was going on here? Should this even be taking place?

"Of course you are," Valjean said firmly, helping the trembling man to his feet. "I will walk you home."

"But Monsieur-" Bertrand started to protest.

Valjean did not spare a glance for him. "We will discuss the matter when I return."

The man did not relax until they were near his home. Valjean kept up a steady stream of chatter about nettles until they had reached his door. He was not in the habit of talking so much but plants, at least, came easily to him and this man seemed to find comfort in the senseless speech.

"I know that you are upset," Valjean said slowly. "I do not wish to make it worse but you have eight fellows in there. What happened? Why were you…?" He did not know how to finish that thought.

"They…it wasn't that they weren't following your rules, they were," the man said, glancing around wildly as if they could hear him. Did that mean he wasn't being truthful? "I just…I couldn't. Is that what real prisons are like? I hadn't thought…You said this would not be as bad as real prisons and no one hit us so you must be right. I hadn't thought but, if that's what…I don't know that I would want even a convict to have to go through that."

"It is terrible, yes," Valjean agreed quietly. "You will still receive your money for participating in this and matters have been arranged so that you will not need to work until the test was to be over. Do not hesitate to use this time to recover. I am sorry that you were hurt."

"It's not your fault, Monsieur le Maire!" the man sounded shocked at the very idea. "You saved me and everyone knows just how good you are!"

Valjean merely smiled and wished him goodnight. He knew the truth, though. Of course it was his fault, it was his test and his idea in the first place.

When he returned, Carton and Bertrand were not pleased.

"Of course you may do what you wish and release all of the prisoners if you like," Bertrand said obsequiously.

"I'm so glad you agree," Valjean said dryly.

"It just seems to me that it is a waste to release a man who is obviously faking," Bertrand continued. "It sets a bad example. What will the other prisons think? Maybe they'll start."

"I do not believe he was faking," Valjean replied. "But what does it matter if he was? They are not really prisoners and I will not have them kept here against their will."

Carton looked unconvinced. "We already have difficulty keeping discipline and now you would have us tell them that they can go right now? They will all leave."

"That is their right," Valjean said simply.

"I…think it is implied that they can leave whenever they choose since 23344 left," Bertrand said slowly.

"Just make sure that they know," Valjean said, suddenly very weary. "How is Javert?"

"22972? He's fine. Very cooperative," Despres told him.

It was a little worrying that they were still calling him that, even to Valjean here. But perhaps they did not want to get out of that habit so they did not slip up in the prison. He had agreed on the 'no prisoner names' rule, as much as it galled him, and would not undermine them now.

"Should we get one of the replacement prisoners?" Despres asked.

Valjean hesitated. "I need to know what happened. I do not want that to happen again. I do not want to put another man in here only to have that happen to him."

"But nothing happened, just a sly prisoner trying to get out of his sentence and you let him," Carton said impatiently.

"They are not really prisoners, they are not really serving a sentence, and even if you are right about him then something must have made him desperate enough to fake those kinds of problems," Valjean said impatiently.

"The others are fine," Carton insisted. "Come see for yourself."

Valjean accepted the invitation and walked back to see the prisoners. His eyes immediately found Javert but the other man would not look at him. There he was, a police inspector, dressed as a woman and sitting in a makeshift jail the guards seemed to be taking a little too seriously. It was understandable, perhaps.

The other men looked at him curiously.

"Is everyone doing fine here?" he asked them. "Nobody wants to leave?"

There were general murmurs that indicated that they did not.

"Are you sure?" he pressed. "Your fellow prisoner had to leave because he was having problems. There is no shame in asking to leave as well."

"That is kind," one of the men said. "But we are fine."

Strange. But what could he do if there were no signs that anyone but the man who had left had been having any problems and they all insisted that they wanted to stay?

He left their area.

"Can we go bring in a replacement prisoner now?" Carton asked eagerly.

Valjean sighed. "Very well. Perhaps I should go with you. I'll need to let him know what's going on."

Perhaps he could warn him though warn him of what he did not exactly know. He could not just let this man walk into this strange situation that did not make sense without trying to speak to him about this.


	5. Chapter 5

Valjean was understandably alarmed that, after the events of the night before when that poor man had just completely broken down and needed to go home, he was once again summoned to the prison. Their former prisoner was doing a little better but was very confused about what had happened. Valjean had tried to ask him about it without upsetting him further but had not managed to learn anything relevant and so was just as confused if not more so because he had not actually been there.

This time, the situation was a little less dire. Or rather, he believed it was less dire. The guards were notably far more concerned than they were about that poor man from yesterday. That was…problematic. Not surprising, of course, but he really needed to keep a close eye on events as they were unfolding. It was just the third day!

"I've heard a rumor," Gautier began immediately once Valjean had arrived. No one was watching the prisoners but then, the doors were locked and they were just in the next room so it should be fine.

"A rumor?" Valjean repeated.

"There is going to be a massive escape tonight," Gautier continued, nodding. "Everyone is going to escape."

"Except for probably 22972," Perrin added. "I just can't see him trying."

"Well even without him, that's still eight prisoners running and we can't have that," Gautier said firmly.

"How do you know this?" Valjean asked, greatly interested. He had never heard of a massive escape attempt like this. He wasn't sure that they should actually do anything about it because if people wished to escape then they should be free to leave but if they continued to deny wanting to leave then what was he supposed to do? Force them? Perhaps the rumor was not even true.

"I heard people talking," Gautier said vaguely. "But that isn't even the most worrying part!"

"Apparently 23344 is going to come back tonight with his friends after the prisoners go to sleep and break everybody out," Motte said seriously.

"His name is Huse," Valjean said quietly and meaningfully. "He is no longer a part of this test and he knows that all you have to do to stop being a part of it is to ask-" or at least ask him "-so why would he try to organize an escape for people who are not in need of it?"

"You don't understand," Gautier said pityingly. "That's just how prisoners are. They never have reason to escape and yet they always try to. It's the same sort of moral failing that led to them becoming prisoners in the first place."

Valjean rather thought he understood more about prisoners and how they thought than anyone here ever would but, once again, it was not something that Madeleine could possibly know of.

"We never should have let him go," Perrin said, rubbing his nose irritably. "I knew that it was just a trick!"

"Trick or no, we had no cause to keep him here. He was not a prisoner any more than any of them are prisoners," Valjean said pointedly.

"But now we have to worry about a break-out and we wouldn't have had to worry about it if we had just kept him where he belonged," Gautier growled.

It was like talking with a wall. Or Javert.

"You are aware that none of this is real, are you not?" Valjean asked.

The three guards agreed that of course they were but Valjean wasn't so sure.

\----

"Monsieur le Maire?" Durand asked, knocking on his door and looking a little bewildered.

"Ah, please come in, Officer," Valjean greeted him with a smile. "Is there anything that I can help you with?"

"I don't know," Durand admitted. "I just have some…some questions, you see, about that whatever it is that you're doing."

That could mean a lot of things. It could mean disapproval or confusion or just plain old curiosity. "Ah."

"One of your men, I'm afraid I don't remember the name but I assume that he was one of yours, came to me today with an interesting request," Durand continued.

"Did he now?" Valjean asked. It must have been one of the guards, or at least Huse, but he could not guess what they had wanted.

"Apparently the prison that you are running is expecting a former prisoner to come with a group and help all of the other prisoners to escape," Durand said matter-of-factly. "You are the mayor and you have a great deal of discretion to act as you will but you are not actually allowed to be running secret prisons with people not lawfully convicted."

Valjean sighed, partially from weariness at having to explain this yet again and partially from relief that there was someone who was still speaking rationally. "I am not holding anyone prisoner. As I explained to you when I asked for your help with the 'arrests' a few days ago, we are doing a test to see how innocent people react when they are placed in a cell and not allowed to leave. They really only have a few things in common with actual prisoners but they are all free to go at any time. In fact, the man that they mentioned to you as being the one to plot this supposed escape asked to be released last night and so he was let go of."

Durand nodded but he still looked suspicious. "That's not what your guard seems to think."

"I…think that perhaps this test is having an unexpected effect on the guards as well," Valjean told him. "They are behaving a little strangely. Still, they let Huse go last night when I ordered it."

"They did not release him when he asked them?" Durand asked sharply.

Valjean could only shrug. "I do not know that he asked them. He was just in a very bad way but they believed he was faking so they would let him go."

"In which case they really should have let him go," Durand concluded.

"I agree. As I said, things are…complicated," Valjean said slowly.

"I was asked if these prisoners of yours could be transferred to our jail until the danger has passed," Durand continued.

Valjean winced. "No."

"I was," Durand insisted. "I told him no, of course, because the jail is for real criminals and not people being paid to pretend that they are and he gave me a disgusted look before walking away and muttering about how disgraceful it was that our two law-upholding institutions can have such of a lack of cooperation. I…did not really know what to do with that and so I took the matter to you."

Valjean sighed. "I will talk to all of them."

"I am getting slightly concerned about this whole thing," Durand admitted.

"It will be fine," Valjean promised, hoping he wasn't lying.

\----

"We need to talk," Valjean said when he showed up at the prison.

"Of course, Monsieur," Motte said easily. "Would you like to speak to me or one of the others? Or does it matter?"

"I need to speak to all of you," Valjean replied.

Motte nodded and went to go collect Perrin and Gautier.

"Do you have any information for us?" Perrin asked eagerly.

Valjean shook his head. "I was visited by the police today. They told me that someone had gone to them requesting that we transfer the people here until their jail."

"Did they change their minds?" Gautier demanded.

"No."

Gautier slumped. "Then why bring it up?"

"You cannot just go around asking to move these people to jail! They have done nothing wrong and do not deserve it."

"But 23344 is coming back tonight! We will be under attack! We cannot just sit idly by and wait for those men to come and release the prisoners!" Gautier burst out.

Valjean wondered if there was some difficulty people were having hearing him.

"Huse is likely doing nothing of the sort and if he does come and the others wish to go with him then that is their right," Valjean said firmly.

"If he does come…there is an idea," Perrin said thoughtfully.

"What?" Motte asked.

"What if we move the prisoners to another room or maybe another building entirely and then when the men came we had Monsieur le Maire here explain that the experiment is over and everyone went home?" Perrin asked.

"We would have to find a way to keep the prisoners in the dark about what was happening and make them less of a threat if only the three of us are expected to move nine of them," Gautier said thoughtfully. "We could put bags over their heads."

"We would have to make sure that they did not suffocate or something," Motte said hesitantly.

"Well of course! We don't want to kill our prisoners!" Gautier exclaimed, sounding shocked. "Oh, and we could even get 23344 back!"

Perrin cocked his head. "What do you mean?"

"If he's stupid enough to show up alone then we just take him there but if he shows up with his friends then we get rid of the friends, maybe ask to speak to him in private to apologize or something, and then once his friends are gone we recapture him and add him back into the experiment!" Gautier sounded really excited.

Valjean was watching this in a state of stunned horror. He kept quiet, though, waiting to see what the others would make of this insane suggestion.

"I don't know," Motte said uncomfortably. "He really had a hard time last time. Wouldn't his friends wait for him?"

"I'm sure we can work it out. And if not then we lure him back tomorrow," Gautier said comfortably.

"But I thought that the whole point of this was to capture him because he was causing problems and this way we don't have to worry about him trying another break-out," Motte protested.

"If we capture him tonight or tomorrow we still will have no further concerns," Gautier told him.

"We're really not equipped to deal with ten prisoners," Perrin pointed out. "Are we supposed to just let 81359 go?"

"We can make it work. One of the cells can have four prisoners instead of three prisoners or we can just rotate prisoners into solitary confinement," Gautier said dismissively. "That might be a good idea by itself, come to think of it. It will help keep them on their toes and remind them of their proper place."

"I just don't see why we have to have the ten prisoners. You heard Monsieur Madeleine, Huse is out and we have 81359 to replace him," Motte told him.

Gautier shook his head pityingly. "Clearly Monsieur Madeleine made a mistake. I hope you are not offended by my frankness, Monsieur, but we must speak plainly if we are to succeed in stopping this foul plot. You had reason enough to believe he was genuine yesterday and perhaps he even was, though I doubt it. But now he's clearly feeling well enough to come back and try to break everyone else out and we just cannot allow that to happen. We cannot let such an attempt pass without consequences. Think of the disorder and chaos that would come from that!"

Valjean had had enough.

"No."

Gautier looked puzzled. "No? You do not believe that not punishing lawlessness and rebellious behavior will cause more of the same?"

Valjean shook his head. "That is not what I meant. We will not, under any circumstances, be luring Huse back in here. He has made his choice clear. He was here as a volunteer and then he quit. He was always a free man no matter how much he was willing to pretend otherwise. We do not have the legal authority to detain him and, more importantly, we do not have the moral authority to do so nor any real cause. And I will not help you deceive them about the experiment being over as well nor will I allow any of you to do so."

Gautier was staring at him in a state of horror though Motte did look a little relieved and Perrin merely bowed his head impassively.

"But you can't!" Gautier burst out. "You would leave us powerless!"

"I can and I will. This is my test and you all answer to me. It is my responsibility to make sure that you do not go too far. That is why we had those rules at the start, if you'll remember, those rules that you insisted that we would not need. Well you are forbidden to implement anything of the sort that you were planning," Valjean said sternly.

"Are we at least permitted to move the prisoners?" Perrin asked respectfully.

"You are," Valjean conceded, feeling strangely guilty for not allowing them to do anything that they had planned and making their job so much harder for them but not willing to compromise on something so important. "But you may not put bags over their heads. If anyone comes and tries to force the prisoners to leave then come get me and I will settle it and we can resume the test later. And we are not going to use a punishment on people who have done nothing to deserve being punished! Is that understood?"

Gautier didn't look happy but he nodded along with the rest.

\----

Javert was not entirely sure what was going on and neither were any of the other prisoners. The guards had been in a foul mood for quite some time and Javert had never so keenly appreciated the importance of a guard's whims. Some of them thought that it must have been the fact that they were forced to release 23344 that had them so upset but Javert was not so sure. The morning guards had not been very upset at the start but then suddenly they had begun to look suspiciously at them. Perhaps they feared another riot. Javert knew that he did but he didn't think that they would try the same futile trick two days in a row, especially since there was nothing to stop it from playing out the same way that it had yesterday.

"Alright, it's time for a count!" Gautier said, sounding annoyed.

Javert sighed internally and slowly stood up. The last count had taken from breakfast until lunch. He was not sure just how long that had been but it was long enough that he was quite hungry by the time it was over. They were not given enough food to truly satisfy them but he had definitely felt a stronger hunger pain by the time it was over. It must have been hours. Or perhaps his sense of time was deteriorating.

When they got into a line, they were told to count off, one after the other, until they were told to stop. Javert was the seventh in line and so said seven his first time and sixteen his second time. They were made to count off until someone's voice broke and then they were asked to start pushing themselves up off of the ground. When their arms gave out from that, they were made to jump up and down in place.

"Oh, is there where it is?" a familiar voice asked.

Javert paused for a moment and then fell out of step with the rest. He closed his eyes briefly, trying to ignore the burning pain in his side and the slowly lessening pain in his arms, and tried to match the jumps of his fellows again. What was Bamatabois, the gentleman who had been assaulted by Fantine and then fled rather than have to write an official report, doing here?

The guards apparently had no clearer idea than he did.

"Monsieur?" Motte asked uncertainly.

"Oh, don't mind me," Bamatabois said pleasantly. "I heard that you were doing some sort of fake prison thing here and I wanted to take a look for myself."

"I can see that you're very curious," Perrin said diplomatically. "But now you've seen it and so we're going to have to ask you to go."

"I would go, really, but I only just got here and this all sounds so very fascinating," Bamatabois said, not putting any real effort in sounding regretful.

"Well I'm afraid that we're going to have to insist," Gautier said firmly.

"Are the doors locked and everything?" Bamatabois asked, ignoring him and moving closer. He tugged experimentally on one of the doors. "It is! Oh, how wonderful. I'm going to need to go down to the jail after this so that I may compare this to an actual jail."

They weren't permitted to discuss any sort of lack of reality about this prison but, as someone completely uninvolved, Javert supposed that was acceptable.

"Can I…talk to one of them?" Bamatabois asked, fascinated. He reached out and poked 46663 who glared at him but did nothing. "Hello, prisoners! You are look really ugly there in dresses like that. You look like whores. Like really ugly whores. I really wish I had some snow…"

"I think that's enough," Motte told him.

"I'm not nearly done yet!" Bamatabois protested, barely deigning to acknowledge him. "You look like animals over there! Like people locked up because they are just so ugly that nobody wants anything to do with them. And with a bunch of whores in prison, who knows what kind of ungodly activities you'll get up to? And in front of each other and the guards even! Oh, have you no shame? This is so very shocking. I hope you don't do anything of the sort while I'm still here!" He looked expectantly at them.

No one moved.

"Look, you've had your fun and I won't begrudge you that," Gautier said, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the door. "But now you need to leave."

"I'd really rather not-" Bamatabois started to say.

"Well I don't care!" Gautier exploded. "We're right in the middle of dealing with a planned-" He cut himself off and glanced over at the prisoners. "We don't have time for this right now."

He hustled a protesting Bamatabois away and Javert was left, as the others were presumably, to wonder just what was going on. It was the lot of a prisoner to wonder, he supposed, and it either didn't matter or he would find out soon enough.

\----

Javert waited in the dark. They were not permitted to talk or sit down and he could not see anything with the bag over his eyes. He had no idea how long he had been standing there but his feet were incredibly sore.

Finally, blessedly, he felt his hand being placed on the shoulder of the man in front of him and, right afterwards, the hands from the person behind him on his own shoulders. This was how they had been moved in the first place all those hours ago. Had it been hours? It must have been hours.

He had quickly closed his eyes because staring with his eyes open when he could see literally nothing was an odd sensation and an uncomfortable one. The fabric was also so close to his head that his eyelashes were pressing against it when his eyes were open and that was not pleasant either.

Breathing was…odd but he had not passed out so he could only assume that that was going fine.

The person in front of him began to walk and he began to walk as well so that he would not be left behind.

Eventually, they were stopped and Javert's hood was removed. He was back in the front of the cells.

"Get in there," Carton said, nodding at one of the cells.

Javert obediently filed in. The others were returned to their cells as well.

"It's time to sleep," Bertrand declared.

"But we haven't had any dinner!" 81359 protested.

Bertrand went right up to 81359 and ordered him to get on the floor.

Looking put-out, 81359 did so.

Bertrand examined the rest of them closely. "71428, sit on his back."

71428 was the largest of them and impassively did so.

"Push yourself up off the ground twenty times," Bertrand ordered.

"I can't possibly do that," 81359 objected, trying to free himself. "Let me up!"

"You will be let up when you have finished with your punishment," Bertrand replied calmly.

81359 did not move for a few minutes, a silent battle of wills. Because Bertrand was not the one with a rather large man sitting on his back and lying on the uncomfortable floor, he won that contest. 81359 slowly, grudgingly, attempted to push himself up but didn't quite make it.

"I can't," he grunted.

"You'll have to," Bertrand said unsympathetically. "I'm sure 71428 does not have anything better to be doing with his time anyway."

71428 said nothing.

It took two more false starts but eventually 81359 was able to push himself up properly. Every few successful attempts had something that Bertrand declared did not count and so it took quite awhile to be through with them.

Finally, Bertrand signaled to 71428 that he could get up.

Bertrand left the cell and the lights were dimmed.

"What about our blankets?" 46663 objected.

He was ignored.

No one wanted to have to undergo what 81359 did and so they did not press the point.

Comfort had never been important to Javert but even he had to admit that the idea of just sleeping on the ground like that…even the convicts of Toulon had had a plank! Still, he was exhausted and confused and so drifted off fairly easily.

They were woken what felt like minutes later by yet another count. Javert did not think that suddenly the others had grown to enjoy this aspect of their sentence but for once they did not say anything and merely obediently filed out of their cells.

They started to go down the line but when 62284 said his number, Carton made an exaggerated showing of cupping his ear. "What was that?"

Looking a little wary, 62284 repeated his number.

"I'm sorry but I'm just not understanding what you're saying," Carton said. "Do you understand, Bertrand?"

"Not at all," Bertrand replied, smirking. "Despres?"

Despres looked away but said nothing.

"Well there you have it. You'll have to say it again," Carton declared grandly.

"62284." He looked like he was growing frustrated.

Carton took a menacing step towards him."You forget yourself."

62284 automatically took a step back. Javert was fairly certain he would not break the moratorium on physical punishments but he couldn't blame 62284 for reacting on instinct.

Bertrand was behind him and pushed him forward. "Stay in line."

There was a strange look in 62284's eyes as they went on.

Finally, Carton smiled broadly and said, "Well, 62284, if you find yourself incapable of complying with a simple order then we have no choice but to put you in solitary."

"But I said it!" 62284 protested.

"And now we have some insubordination!" Carton crowed. "We just may leave you in longer for that."

He beckoned for 62284 to come him and, reluctantly, the man obeyed. Carton shut him in solitary and went on with the count. Javert thought that they were all a little more nervous after that.

\----

"-a complete waste of time!" Carton was complaining. He and Bertrand had gone straight to Valjean's office after their shift was over.

"I am sorry that you had to spend all that time preparing for something that ultimately did not happen," Valjean said mildly. "But surely this is a good thing that the plot that you imagined did not happen?"

"They probably did it on purpose," Carton grumbled.

"I agree. We weren't there when the plot was discovered but someone overheard something. I cannot believe that one of my fellow guards would lie about something like that, especially with the preventative work they themselves did, and so the prisoners must have fed us that to make us waste our time," Bertrand concluded.

"Those criminals laughing at us!" Carton growled.

"They are not actually criminals," Valjean reminded the man, yet again.

"Perhaps they called off their plot after we found out about it and took steps to prevent it. They must have known that we knew," Bertrand concluded.

"Come now, be reasonable," Valjean entreated. "How would they have gotten a message to their outside accomplices?"

Bertrand's face darkened. "That is an excellent question, Monsieur le Maire, one that I definitely intend to follow up on."

"I do understand your frustration and to some extent I can even sympathize," Valjean said calmly. "But there is really nothing to be done about it. You cannot punish these men because they did not escape no matter what you had heard that indicated that they planned otherwise. That is madness and this is not Toulon!"

"But Monsieur-" Carton protested.

"I need to know that I can rely on you to follow the rules, Carton," Madeleine interrupted. "If you do not then I am going to have to have you removed."

Carton's mouth snapped shut. "I can follow the rules."

"Good. Now was there anything else?"

The pair shook their head and departed.

Once they were gone, the local priest came in.

Valjean stood to greet him with a smile. "Father Michel! It is good to see you."

"And it always good to see you, as well," Michel said respectfully. "Your note mentioned something about needing my help with something?"

"It is more of a favor than anything," Valjean amended. "You have heard, I believe, of the test I am doing with Inspector Javert and some other volunteers."

"Ah, yes, the one where you created your own prison," Michel confirmed, nodding.

"You do not approve," Valjean guessed.

Michel shook his head. "It is not my place to approve or disapprove. You are the mayor and no laws are being broken. No one is being hurt and everyone has agreed to it. I do not understand it, however."

"I am trying to help Javert with," Valjean hesitated, not quite sure how to put it, "his compassion."

Michel nodded. "The inspector is a good man but he is not a man of mercy."

"I did not initially intend for this to happen but he was quite eager to prove to me that being imprisoned does not have an effect on an innocent man and I quite disagree with that. We are doing nothing so harsh as an actual prison, I assure you."

Michel nodded again. "I see your reasoning a little better though I must admit that I still do have some concerns. Locking up innocent men, even with their consent?"

Valjean sighed. "Truthfully, Father, I have had concerns as well. I went into this with concerns. I have seen the effects that imprisonment have on the guilty let alone the innocent and I have watched the way people with power sometimes wield it unjustly. I have tried to be careful, tried to curtail their behavior, but I cannot be there at all times. So very often I have to just trust what the guards tell me. I have tried asking the prisoners but they will not speak to me. Perhaps I am overreacting and everything is fine."

"But you do not think so," Michel theorized.

Valjean sighed again. "I do not, no. There are little things. There was a man who wanted to leave two days ago. He was really very upset and behaving most peculiarly. The guards thought he was pretending to be having problems because he wanted to leave. But he should have been able to leave at any time. In addition to this man's problems, which I believe to be genuine, they keep speaking of the prisoners as if they were actual prisoners. They do not want to let anyone go even if they ask to be let go of. There was even a suggestion of trying to recapture that poor man who just wanted to go home."

Michel listened quietly and then, after some consideration, nodded his head. "That is most concerning. What would you have me do? Speak to your guards?"

Valjean shook his head. "If you would like, you are certainly welcome to do that but I would actually like it if you spoke to the prisoners."

"What would you have me tell them?" Michel asked.

Valjean shrugged. "Just…speak to them. Minister to them as if they were really prisoners who really needed your help."

He did not ask if Father Michel was one of the rare priests who would be willing to do so for an actual convict.


	6. Chapter 6

Javert was surprised when a priest showed up. Considering how noticeably religious Madeleine was, perhaps he should not have been.

The guards were not happy to let him in but he had arrived with Madeleine and so they had to obey.

The priest, Father Michel if Javert remembered correctly, instructed the guards to take the prisoners to see him one at a time.

When it was Javert's turn, he was led to an actual table. He stared uncertainly at the chair before him. Father Michel was sitting on the other chair. His hands were folded in front of him and he smiled pleasantly up at Javert.

"Sit, my son," Father Michel invited.

Javert did as he was told.

"What is your name?" Father Michel asked kindly.

"22972," Javert replied.

Father Michel looked sad. "Did you know you're the third person to introduce himself to me by number?"

"Only the third?" Javert asked, disappointed. At least some of them were learning.

"How are you feeling?" Father Michel asked.

Javert blinked. "I…am well."

"Are you having any difficulty in prison?" Father Michel pressed.

Javert shook his head. "Things are going fine."

"I heard there was a little problem the other day, something about a riot," Father Michel said.

"I was not a part of that," Javert said proudly. "And the guards regained control soon enough."

"It sounds like you value order and deference to the authorities," Father Michel noted.

"I do," Javert agreed. "We are here for a reason and we will be released in due time. It is not the guard's fault that we are here and it would be unjust to take our misery out on them."

"Misery?"

Javert looked down. "I mean that…our situation is inferior to what it was when we were free but of course that is just because we are prisoners here. I do not mean to complain or question."

"I see," Father Michel said, looking intensely at him. "Do you know when you will be released?"

"Yes."

"Have you thought about trying to get out of here sooner?" Father Michel asked.

Javert's eyes widened. Surely a man of the church would not be advocating attempting to escape! And why was he even thinking of attempting escape? It was not his job to think like a convict and anticipate escape attempts anymore.

"What do you mean?" he asked carefully.

"Have you tried to find out if there's anything you can do to shorten your sentence?" Father Michel asked. "I am not an expert on these things but you could talk to a lawyer, perhaps. Or be paroled early for good behavior. I'm sure there are other options that will probably be more plausible than these. And you have worked with the law before; surely you know what you can do."

Javert's face flushed and he was ashamed that he had suspected such a man of talking about aiding escape.

"There is nothing," Javert said clearly. "And I would not want it if there was. I will not try to cheat my way out of fulfilling my sentence. I am not a thief."

"Very well," Father Michel said quietly. "Is there anything else you would like to discuss? Anyone you would like me to give a message to."

Javert almost said no just instinctually but then he stopped and thought about it.

"Could you…" he began haltingly.

"Yes?"

"Could you tell me how the police have been doing since I came here?"

\----

"Monsieur le Maire," Fevre said, approaching him.

Valjean looked over at him. "Yes?"

"One of the prisoners, 71428, is refusing to meet with Father Michel," Fevre told him.

Valjean frowned. "He does not have to, of course, if he would not care to."

It made him uneasy that one of the prisoners would be refusing to make use of the priest that he had provided but he could not force anyone to God and many men had lost their faith in prison. He himself had lost his faith if he had ever really had faith to begin with. He was not quite sure anymore.

But Fevre, instead of going away like he had expected, hesitated.

"Yes?"

"He is…not well. He may be sick. He asks for a doctor and refuses to eat. But he has not been not eating long enough to be sick, I do not think. I do not know what to do," Fevre told him. "Should we force him to eat?"

They forced people in Toulon. The convicts there had not even the power over their own life or death.

"Let me talk to him first," Valjean said, "away from the others."

He followed Fevre back to the cells and then watched as he opened the door and called the man in question out.

The man, whose name he did not remember, stood trembling and took a shaky step towards them. He had barely left the cell when the tears started.

Valjean was alarmed at this and quickly moved to help this man into another room away from the others. They did not need to see his pain. He stood there in silence for a few minutes, uncertain of what to say. The man from the day before had wanted to leave and it was a simple enough matter to just turn him loose.

"Are you-" Valjean cut himself off. Of course this man was not alright. "Who are you?"

"7-71428," the man sobbed.

Valjean had seen this before. He had been this man once.

He didn't have to think about it. He reached up and pulled the man's cap off. He knelt down and took off the chain around the man's foot.

The man eyed him in bewilderment. "I don't understand."

"You said you needed a doctor, yes?" Valjean asked rhetorically.

Slowly, the man nodded, his tears slowing but not stopping.

"Then I will get you a doctor," Valjean promised. "And some food. Would you like to leave?"

There was a look that might have been hope growing in the other man's eyes but before he could say anything, the chanting started.

Valjean could not make it out at first. What was going on? Had the priest seen everyone except for this man before him now? Even if he had, why would there be chanting? What was going on here? He wanted to know but didn't want to have to leave this vulnerable man alone.

Before he could decide what to do, it got louder and then he understood. Judging by the way that the other man had turned pale (Philippe Roux! That was his name!), he had finally been able to make it out, too.

"71428 was a bad prisoner. Because of what 71428 did, my cell is a mess, monsieur," the prisoners chanted. "71428 was a bad prisoner. Because of what 71428 did, my cell is a mess, monsieur."

Over and over and over again.

Roux covered his ears with trembling hands and shut his eyes tightly but he could not shut out the chanting.

Valjean did not understand. This was not a real prison, Roux was not a real prisoner, no one who was here had done anything wrong! Why were they tormenting someone who was clearly having a hard time? Did they think he was faking like they had thought the man from the other night had been faking? What did it matter if he was?

Roux' tears, which had almost stopped when Valjean had promised him a doctor and some food, began anew. Every time the chanting began again, the cries grew more wretched and before long he was sobbing uncontrollably.

Valjean had actually been there on the first day when the guards had had the prisoners chanting something. They had actually had fun then, all of them, though it had been so strange to see anyone enjoying a simulation of a prison. Strange and rather difficult. Now there was no amusement except maybe from the guards. Now it was just mindless obedience. They were chanting because they were told to. That was all.

It had been four days.

"Listen," Valjean said urgently. "It is not a good idea for you to be here. Let's get you home."

But when he reached for Roux, the other man pulled away. "No!"

"No?" Valjean asked uncertainly. Did he not want to be touched? He could not blame Roux if that were the case.

"I can't go," Roux said desperately.

"I tell you that you can. Are you worried about getting in trouble?" Valjean asked. "I promise you that you will not."

"It's not that," Roux said stubbornly. "They're saying that I am a bad prisoner. I'm not a bad prisoner. I have to stay. I have to make them see. I'm not a bad prisoner!"

"I'm sure you're not," Valjean said vaguely, his thoughts in tumult.

He had had more than his fair share of prison experience, to put it mildly. In all that time, he had never once worried about being a bad prisoner. Nobody had, he didn't think. In fact, being too good of a prisoner and being on the guard's side would only cause more trouble with the other convicts than it would help with the guards. Valjean himself had been a very bad prisoner with his four escapes. He had long since accepted that. It hadn't mattered. If he had been offered the chance to leave early he would have taken it no matter what. He certainly wouldn't have even considered giving up the chance because he didn't like what it was that people viewed him as! What did something like that matter?

But it had only been four days. This was not Toulon. Things were not as bad there though clearly they were still bad and he would need to look into it. Things were different and so being known as a bad prisoner was a serious concern. The guards had known what they were doing with that chant.

"Listen, you are not 71428," Valjean said firmly. "Your name is Philippe Roux. And I am Monsieur Madeleine, the mayor of this town and not a prison warden. This is not a real prison. You are not a real prisoner and neither are they and those guards are not real guards. This is just a test. Let's go."

Roux stopped crying. He looked up at Valjean with tear tracks still on his face. He was blinking rapidly like he had just been woken up from a nightmare.

When he reached for Valjean's hand, looking like he couldn't quite believe what was happening to him, Valjean wondered wildly if this was what the Bishop had felt like.

\----

Valjean knew very well, of course, that parole was not something that happened faster if a criminal behaved well (unless, of course, behaving well meant they didn't do anything to get their sentence extended). When their sentence was served in full then they would be permitted to go on parole even if the guards did not want to let him go. He had been well-aware of just how reluctant Toulon had been to let him go and yet he had been released anyway.

But this was not a real prison and he was growing more alarmed by the day. When he had ordered another one of the spare prisoners to be arrested, this one called 51170, he had promised himself that he would not just passively sit back and allow this cycle of prisoners leaving an being replaced by new people who would be in those same conditions that were somehow causing such problems to continue.

He was going to have to investigate, then. He did not want to call the experiment off so soon and what could he do about the individual prisoners if they would not leave? He only had so many spare people to replace them even if all the guards stayed and all of the spares replaced prisoners. It was remarkable, really. He did not think that anyone who was lazy or disinclined to work would have fit Javert's stringent standards for a morally upright person fit to be in this test but just the same…

It had been five days and everyone had shown up for their shift on time and uncomplainingly. It must be very dull and very trying work to spend eight hours running a pretend prison and not being able to take their eyes off of their work. Valjean wondered if the guards at Toulon had been the same. They had all seemed nameless, faceless phantoms most of the time to him and even if he had been more cognizant of his surroundings he still would not have been privy to such a weakness amongst their shepherds.

But even if they had, that was a real prison guarding real prisoners. This was just a game of sorts. A pretend prison.

And so he had decided to interview the prisoners individually and offer them the chance to leave early. Javert would not approve but there was not much that he had ever done that Javert approved of and he had agreed that it could not be exactly like a prison anyway.

Lavaud was watching the proceedings, Dubois was in charge of bringing the prisoners to Valjean and then taking them back, and Fevre was watching the remaining prisoners.

The first person he was faced with was Guerin. It galled him to have to call a man by a number after so long as 24601 but what could he do? It was his own rules. Perhaps he could at least minimize the amount of time he would him anything.

"Prisoner 44142," Valjean greeted.

Guerin wouldn't look at him. "Warden."

"Do you know why you're here?" Valjean asked, not entirely sure how to do something like this. It was best to make sure that they understood before going too far and confusing them further if they didn't, right?

"I think it was theft," Guerin offered. "I can't really remember, though."

Theft, theft, always theft.

"No," Valjean said, shaking his head. "I mean, why were you brought before me today?"

Guerin did manage to raise his eyes a little. "They said that maybe I might get to leave here early."

"Yes, we are considering every case here and seeing if we are going to release people early for good behavior," Valjean confirmed. "Do you believe that you deserve to be released early?"

Guerin nodded his head earnestly. "Oh, yes. I have been really good."

Valjean raised an eyebrow. "Really? I seem to remember that there was a rebellion awhile back and you were involved."

Guerin squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. "Well, that was…everyone was involved in that. Nearly everyone," he amended.

"That is true," Valjean said. "But does that mean that, because everyone was involved in a riot, that it doesn't count? Because everyone was equally badly behaved does that wipe the slate clean and make it so that nobody was wrong? Or does it mean that everybody was wrong and therefore maybe nobody deserves to be paroled early?"

"I…" Guerin trailed off, blinking a lot. "I do not know. I do not feel that I should be punished for that, though."

"You don't feel that you should be punished for having a revolt against the proper system?" Valjean asked skeptically. He was not generally on the side of prisons and their punishments but even he could concede the need to punish people for trying to overthrow the system or else what was to stop them from continuously trying to overthrow the system?

"No, that wasn't what I…" Guerin broke off again, miserably. He shook his head. "That isn't what I meant. I was already punished. We were all already punished. I even spent some time in solitary."

Valjean nodded. "That is right. But being let out early is for good behavior. Even if your punishment is over that does not mean that you were well-behaved. A punishment cannot erase the past."

"I had to do it!" Guerin protested. "They were being awful!"

"And has anything gotten better since you tried?" Valjean asked.

Guerin mumbled something.

"You will need to speak up."

Guerin cleared his throat and looked up. "I said that it has gotten worse."

That would not surprise him given that no one had tried to leave before the revolt (it had happened on the first night after all) and now there were two gone.

"Even if I agreed that participation in the rebellion is not enough to condemn you to stay, for if it was then why would I even be here given how everyone had participated, you weren't just a participant were you?" Valjean asked shrewdly.

Guerin swallowed. "What do you mean?"

"You and another prisoner were the leaders of the rebellion, weren't you?" Valjean pressed. "Without you this might never have happened. We must always hold our leaders to a higher standard even when we can sometimes forgive our followers."

"That wasn't…it was a long time ago," Guerin said, looking away again.

It was four days ago.

"I don't know how you can possibly expect me to let such an unrepentant troublemaker out early," Valjean mused. "I have certainly not been favorably impressed by your good behavior. You are here for a reason and you clearly have no respect for that reason."

"I do!" Guerin burst out, standing up.

"Sit down," Valjean ordered.

Guerin started and then did as he was told. "Please. I have to get out of here."

"What would you give to get out of here?" Valjean asked. He wondered if this counted as asking to be removed from the experiment. He was not actually asking to leave, after all, just to be paroled early. It was to the same end but was it ultimately the same? He would have to ask again once the parole interviews were over.

"Anything," Guerin said immediately, desperately.

"You have earned a certain amount of money in your time here," Valjean said casually.

Guerin nodded uncertainly.

"Would you be willing to forfeit all of the money you have earned in exchange for the ability to walk out of here right now?" Valjean asked curiously.

"Yes!"

There was a clear dejected air about him. He would give up all of his money if only he were paroled. How did he not see that quitting would allow him to leave with his money? Valjean had been very clear at the start that the money was theirs no matter if they stayed the whole time or not. How could he not remember? It had only been five days.

"Is there anything else you wish to say?" Valjean asked finally.

"Please."

"I will consider your request," Valjean told him. "Guard, take him back to his cell and bring me the next prisoner."

\----

Javert was the last prisoner to go in to see Warden Madeleine. He did not approve of the idea of letting them out early. They hadn't been there for very long and who had ever heard of letting prisoners out early because they had been good? Good? What difference did that make? What did it even prove? If a prisoner was good in prison it just meant that he had worked out that he would be treated better and punished less and said nothing of what would happen outside of prison. And even if he had genuinely decided to not break any law in the future and would actually be able to live by that, which was highly unlikely, that did not erase his initial crime and erase the need for a proper punishment.

But Madeleine was in charge of this and it would not surprise Javert in the slightest if everyone was let go of after only five days.

There was a chair in the room a few feet from a desk. Madeleine was seated behind that desk looking impassive. He gestured for Javert to take his seat.

"Prisoner 22972," Madeleine greeted.

Javert bowed deeper than usual since he was a prisoner and waited by the chair.

Madeleine looked confused for a moment before saying, "Please, take a seat."

Javert obligingly sat down.

"Do you know why you have been brought before me today?" Madeleine continued.

Javert nodded. "You are reviewing our cases to see if any of us has behaved so well in prison under the threat of punishment that we somehow deserve to pretend as though our crime never happened and be released before fully paying for it."

Madeleine blinked. "That is…not inaccurate even though I would not have put it that way. Do you believe that you deserve to be released early?"

"No."

"Why not?" Madeleine asked, not looking particularly taken aback.

"My sentence is not yet up," Javert said simply. "Do not think that I am being overly hard on myself, Monsieur. None of us deserve to be released because we haven't caused problems."

"You really would not like to leave early?" Madeleine pressed.

"Do not mistake me," Javert said seriously. "I do not enjoy being here. If I enjoyed being here then that would be defeating the purpose. But I cannot condone such lax standards of justice and you should not either."

Madeleine looked like he wanted to say something but must have changed his mind as he did not speak.

"I would recommend that none of us be paroled early. It would be terribly unjust, even to us," Javert concluded.

"I see," Madeleine remarked. "There is no reason to continue this discussion as I can hardly force you to be paroled."

"You could," Javert disagreed. "But I would appreciate it if you did not."

With that, Javert stood and was led back to his cell.

\----

Valjean closed his eyes the moment the two guards led Javert out and he was left alone.

If he were actually going to let people out then he did not know what he would do. If he were going to let people out that would mean this wasn't just a test and an actual prison situation. And how could he choose there? How could he condemn someone to more time in prison when he could let them out early? How could he possibly make a choice like that? He would not go so far as to say that there was nothing to be gained from keeping certain people away from society but Toulon was not the answer either.

He was glad that it was not him who had to determine these things or find an alternative to Toulon. It would seem that even this far milder form of prison was too much for some people. How was it that people could handle Toulon (he had handled Toulon) far better than some of these people who had had to leave? It did not make sense to him. Something somewhere was wrong.

Javert was an obvious person to let go, even since he had decided not to let anyone go but he did not want that and anyway the whole point of this was to have Javert witness this so if he left then there was no point in considering.

The things he had had to say! He did not think that he had been cruel or uncivil but he had to be so unsympathetic and that was something that he had tried his best not to be for the last eight years. It had come all too easily once and he did not want to risk finding it all too easy again.

All he did was bring up what had been done in the past. Admittedly, the past was only four days ago but the Bishop had not held his past of a few hours ago against him and had given him a second chance before he had even resolved to try to change. They were all so desperate to get out, desperate enough that nearly all of them would have surrendered all of their money just for the chance to leave even though they did not have to. If they were all so eager to leave would they agree if he asked them once more to quit this? What would it say if they still refused?

Javert, at least, was no surprise. It would seem that he was less affected by this than the others. Was that because of his strict worldview? His time in Toulon teaching him what real prison suffering was? His general Javert-ness? Valjean could only hope that he was at least a little bit changed by this experience or else there was no point to any of this. Worse than no point because Javert would just take it as a confirmation that he was right and the last thing Valjean ever wanted to be was confirmation that Javert was right about something.

He knew that Javert watched him. One day, if he was very unlucky, something might come of that and he might prove Javert right in another way. He would not prove him right any more often than he had to.

How must he have seemed to these poor men, the ones who hadn't done anything? How cruel and heartless he must have appeared and would appear more so when he told them their fate. He had very few clear memories of his own condemnation but he imagined that his role here wasn't that different.

He had work to do and really should just report the results and go back to his office. And he would the moment that the nausea passed and he could stand up.


	7. Chapter 7

Javert impassively sat in his cell while everything was in chaos around him. The guards did not particularly care as long as they were safe and sound inside their cells. If this went on for too long then they might be silenced but so far they were allowing it.

Javert had been the only one to get his way on the issue of parole. Madeleine had, to everyone's surprise, refused to grant anyone parole. Something in the way that he looked at Javert made him wonder just why he hadn't granted Javert parole. Was he ever going to give anyone parole? He had cited the rebellion as his main reason for turning down everyone's requests and that was certainly valid but he would have known about that before he interviewed anyone.

But he had made the right decision and so what did his reasons matter? The fact that even Madeleine agreed with him made him more convinced than ever that he was right about the problems with early release. After all, if a man who could decide to save a prostitute from prison simply because she had a sad life and was sick would not let these people out early then clearly it was a terrible idea.

The sound of everyone reacting to the fact that they would not be released less than halfway into their sentence was strange. A few days ago it would have been anger but now it was more hopelessness. Hopelessness was generally easier to deal with but it could also lead to some dangerous behavior from those who thought they had nothing left to lose. Javert had seen it before. They were wrong, though. There was always something else to lose.

"I really thought I'd get out," 50765 said sadly. Javert did not see how with his prominent participation in the overthrow of the prison.

"There's no hope. We're going to be here forever," 46663 said, even more irrationally.

It was actually not uncommon for people to give up the hope of ever leaving Toulon (Valjean, for instance, had never said anything but he had seen the look in the man's eye following one of his trial's after another failed escape) but usually it was after a few years into a particularly long sentence or after their sentence had been extended for some reason. This had been five days and their sentence was only two weeks. These men would not last a week in Toulon.

Eventually, one of the guards stepped forward and it was immediately quiet.

"46663," Motte said, frowning. "Come here."

46663 reluctantly stepped up to the bars off his cage. He had no reason to fear, though, for Motte was a terrible guard. He never punished anyone for anything.

"What do you think?" Motte asked, not turning around.

"Think about what?" Gautier asked.

"His skin. He's got a rash all over," Motte told him.

Gautier didn't move. "Oh, what does it matter? It will go away on its own and it's not our responsibility."

Perrin moved closer. "Maybe we should take this to Monsieur Madeleine."

"I'm sure he won't want to be bothered by this," Gautier said dismissively.

"I'm sure he will," Motte disagreed. "He's always very interested in the wellbeing of our prisoners."

Gautier scowled. "He's overly invested, if you ask me. All a prisoner has to do is complain that their head hurts or their stomach does and he wants to send them home! What is the point of a prison if we just let anybody go who wants to go? If we show him the rash he'll yank 46663 out, too."

"We should at least keep an eye on it," Perrin said reasonably. "Maybe bring some sort of salve."

"I'm not spending my money on it," Gautier said firmly.

"We'll work something out," Motte said. "You won't have to."

Perrin was one of the good guards. There were three types of guards that had emerged in this prison though there had only been two in Toulon. Some guards, like Motte, did little favors for prisoners. He probably would buy the salve himself and personally bring it in, maybe give 46663 a little extra food because he was sick. He never would have lasted in Toulon. He never would have been hired in Toulon in the first place. They were controlling men who could be far older and stronger than they were and more experienced in prison life. They had far more men under their control than there were guards and they were the worst scum France had. Well, the worst scum that had not been executed that was.

If any slight sympathy for prisoners was suspected in a person then they were not fit to be a guard. Even if nothing could be proven it was too much of a chance to take. Prisoners could and would take advantage of any sign of weakness and pity for their charges was most definitely a weakness and one of the easier ones to exploit.

The best guards were the fair guards, the ones who were not kind to the prisoners but also did not give in to their base impulses and be unnecessarily cruel. They followed the law and the prison regulation and did not deviate from it no matter what. He did not think that it made much of a difference to the prisoners if they were still being punished but it was certainly safer for them to be around a guard who would only discipline them when they needed to be disciplined.

Javert had, of course, made it his mission to be a fair guard and he liked to think that he succeeded.

Then there were the guards like Gautier. The ones who not only did not care for the prisoners but were more disdainful of them than was necessary, the ones who were hostile, arbitrary, and inventive in their forms of punishment. Strictly speaking, it was necessary for the guards here to be inventive since none of the ways that Javert knew of to control and discipline prisoners was allowed or if it was allowed it was only allowed in such a pitifully reduced form that it was not nearly as effective.

Javert had often tried to figure out which type of guard was the worst (for clearly there was no 'best' when it came to bad guards) and he found that he could not choose. One went too far and failed to instill any sense of discipline or good behavior in the prisoners since no matter what they did or how well they listened they might still be beaten. The other – though these guards did not intervene – were too nice and were never going to get the prisoners to listen. They would make the prisoners think that all guards were as soft as that and give them dangerous ideas.

That night, 51170 did not touch his dinner.

"Come on, you need to eat," Despres said gently. He was another one. "Here, do you not like it? I can see about getting you some bread."

"It has nothing to do with the food," 51170 said stubbornly, sitting on the floor and crossing his arms.

"It's true," 50765 spoke up.

It was strange, given how defiant he had been during the rebellion, but he and a few others had evidently decided that their best chance was to obey the rules. That was true, though they had disapproved of Javert's choice to do so at first. He had wondered if this good behavior would last once the early parole was refused and was pleasantly surprised that he had.

"And that's not all," 50765 continued. "He hasn't eaten anything since he arrived."

"He has not eaten anything today," Javert clarified. "He did eat dinner last night, as you will recall."

"You have to eat, 51170," Despres insisted.

"What's going on?" Carton asked, coming over.

"It's nothing, I've got it," Despres claimed.

"50765, what's going on?" Carton asked, ignoring him.

"Prisoner 51170 is refusing to eat, sir, and he has not had anything else to eat all day," 50765 obediently answered.

"Is that so?" Carton asked, a strange note in his voice. "You really refuse to eat?"

"I really refuse to eat," 51170 confirmed, looking almost proud.

"Why?" Despres demanded, confused. "You are only hurting yourself."

"I agreed to stay in a prison for two weeks and ended up only being called on to do this four days in," 51170 declared. "I can't even take a piss without a guard telling me I can since there are no chamber pots here and I'm not about to just go here like some sort of an animal. I have to count off every time I have to turn around in case they can't keep track of nine people! And why does it take so damn long to do it? All these punishments and these games! Well I'm protesting. I do not want this and this is not what I agreed to do and so I'm just not going to eat."

"You can eat voluntarily or we can force you to eat," Carton growled.

"Carton," Despres said pointedly.

51170 laughed. "Oh yes, by all means. You're breaking all the other rules why not the 'do not hurt prisoners' one as well? Monsieur Madeleine seemed pretty serious about it yesterday."

Carton's eyes narrowed.

"Fine," he said coolly.

"There really is nothing we can do to convince you to eat?" Despres asked urgently.

"No."

"It wouldn't matter if there was. Enough is enough." Carton opened up the cell. "Come with me. You're going into solitary."

"Fine with me," 51170 said, doing his best to look indifferent. He had never been to solitary, however, and could not hide a faint trace of unease.

Carton said nothing further, just led the way to the closet and then shut it behind 51170.

They ate in silence, after that, and everyone made sure to completely finish their food just in case they might get in trouble for not eating as well.

None of them had any idea what time it was but Javert had always had a rather good idea of how long things took and it seemed to him that 51170 had been in there for an awfully long time.

"Shouldn't we…?" Despres finally asked uncertainly.

Bertrand glanced over at him. "Shouldn't we what?"

Despres shrugged awkwardly. "51170."

"Ah, right, him," Carton said, snapping his fingers, as if he only just remembered. "Prisoners, I offer you a choice. 51170 has been in solitary for awhile now. If you like I can let him out right now."

There was a hesitation.

"He'll just cause problems if he's let out," 62284 said finally. "Look at all the problems he's already caused just by not eating properly."

"Yes," 24405 agreed. "He seems to have a problem with all of this and I don't even want to know what he'll do next."

Carton was openly smirking. Back when the rebellion had happened, 51170 would have been a hero. Now, a mere three days later, he was the hated troublemaker and they didn't even want to let him out of solitary even though his time had passed.

"You haven't heard the rest of it yet," Carton continued. "In order to let him out you must surrender your blankets tonight."

"I'm certainly not giving up my blanket," 50765 said firmly and there were murmurs of agreement.

"So what is it to be?" Carton asked, thoroughly enjoying himself. "Does anybody want to allow 51170 to come out?"

There was a silence before Javert spoke up. "I say that he should be let out."

Carton drew back, clearly shocked. "You? But 22972, you-"

"I do not approve of rebellion and the pointless starving of oneself is both petty and cannot be tolerated," Javert assured him. "But the rules say that he should only be there for one hour and so I cannot support anything that would involve him being there for longer than that one hour."

Bertrand shook his head. "22972, I do not think that I will ever understand you."

\----

Valjean came back to the prison and looked around, puzzled. "I see only eight. Did something happen to the newest person?"

There was a strange look that passed between the guards before Bertrand offered, "51170 is in solitary."

"Is he?" Valjean asked, hoping that they would elaborate. When they said nothing, he turned to Javert. "What happened?"

"51170 refused to eat his food and he has not eaten anything all day," Javert answered promptly. "He is not happy with the conditions and refused to eat until things were…more to his liking."

Valjean's eyes widened. "He's been in there since you served them dinner?"

Despres nodded uncomfortably.

"Was dinner delayed for some reason?" Valjean asked hopefully.

"Ah, no," Despres replied.

"That was just over three hours ago!" Valjean exclaimed, horrified.

"We didn't put him in there immediately," Carton defended himself. "It took us awhile to realize that he was not eating and would not be persuaded to eat." He shot Despres an annoyed look at that.

"What was the rule about solitary confinement?" Valjean asked quietly, taking a deep and calming breath. That was an abuse right there. Was this the first time that had happened.

Reluctantly, Carton admitted, "No one may be in solitary for longer than one hour at a time and there must be at least one hour between times that someone may be put in solitary."

"And they cannot be punished twice for the same offence unless they repeat it," Valjean added. "So tell me why he has been in there for so long?"

"We thought…" Bertrand trailed off.

"Get him out of there now."

Despres quickly went over and opened the door.

The man who came out blinked rapidly at the sudden light in a move that was a painfully familiar sight to Valjean.

"Has something like this happened before?" Valjean asked, looking once more at Javert.

He knew that he could count on him for an honest answer in a way that he did not believe that he could count on the guards. He could only hope that he would not be getting Javert into any trouble by asking him to inform on the guards. Javert, at least, would not hold it against him and be rather appalled if he had thought to stay ignorant in order to protect Javert from doing what the other man thought was his duty.

Mercifully, Javert shook his head. "No. They were, however, planning to keep him there all night."

"And that is even less acceptable! See that a violation of the rules of solitary does not happen again." Valjean looked meaningfully at Javert. "I will know."

\----

After a long night speaking with Father Michel, Valjean knew what he had to do. It was only six days into this when it was supposed to last two weeks but how could he let this go on? People were having such horrible reactions and after what he heard in the parole interviews yesterday…Javert might be disappointed but even he should be able to see that when the guards were breaking the rules they could no longer be trusted to watch the prisoners unsupervised. He did not know how long it would take before they began to break other rules as well.

And if Javert still disapproved then Javert still disapproved. It would not be the first time nor the last, he was sure, and there were worse things than Javert's disapproval.

Valjean walked into the cell where Fevre, Lavaud, and Dubos were on duty. He would need to send a message to the other six guards to let them know that they were not needed so they would not have to come all the way down here.

"Monsieur le Maire!" Fevre exclaimed, spotting him first. "Is there something we can do for you?"

Valjean glanced over at the prisoners. They seemed a little bored but otherwise alright.

"How has everything been since I left?" Valjean asked, addressing himself once more to Javert. He wondered what Javert thought of a prisoner being believed over the guards as to what was going on.

"Things have been fine," Javert answered curtly.

"I know that we are only six days into our proposed experiment and it was supposed to run for two weeks," Valjean said, ignoring the stunned reactions his mentioning that this was not a real prison earned him, "but I'm afraid that I'm going to have to end this right now."

There was silence for a moment.

"What?" Lavaud asked politely. "End what, Monsieur Madeleine?"

"This whole situation, the prison," Valjean said, waving a hand vaguely. "If one of you could be so kind as to release these poor people? I assure you, you will still receive the full amount I promised you even though we ended early."

There was another silence before one of them fell to his knees and began thanking God.

That seemed to break everyone out of their stupor and Dubos went forward to open the cages.

There were several cries of thanks he received from the people who were locked up on his orders in the first place, none of them seemed to see him as anything but their deliverer. It made him uncomfortable and so as soon as he led them back into the light he fled.

He could only hope that he had not done irreparable harm to those innocent people.

He could only hope that Javert would give at least a little and this had not all been for naught.

\----

The very first thing that Javert had done was go home and clean himself up so he could report for duty more than a week earlier than he was supposed to. They were all quite surprised to see him back so soon but they were not about to try and keep him away. One man had been halfway through an offer to let Javert just have the rest of the time allotted to him to be absent when he stopped, having realized what a foolish offer that truly was and how little Javert would ever have considered it.

He wanted, of course, to go and see Madeleine immediately and discuss their little test as well as the reasons why it had ended. He refrained and did his duty. His men were competent but there was still a lot he had missed out on in the near-week he was absent. When at last he had finished what he concluded was a satisfactory amount, he went to the mayor's office hoping he would still be there.

Luck was with him and he was.

Madeleine looked up as he neared and he had a carefully neutral expression.

"Yes, Javert?"

Javert smiled wanly. "Do you know that today is the first time I've heard my name said in nearly a week? Perhaps that is not so long in the grand scheme of things but it has given me a strange satisfaction to hear my name spoken since we were released today."

Madeleine seemed to hesitate. "Is that so? Javert, I know that you were against anyone being released early only yesterday but I really must stand behind my decision here."

But Javert shook his head. "I was against the notion of people not serving out their full sentence because they were pretending to be good. Or, who knows, maybe they had decided to live as law-abiding citizens once their time was up. Some do, as it happens, though not enough. In the end it changes nothing and the sentences still need to be fulfilled. But this was not a true prison and we were not true prisoners so if you wished to end things early then that was your choice."

"I do not remember if I offered the people involved, the guards and the prisoners, whatever help they might need after this," Madeleine murmured. "I do not know what, precisely, they might need but this was an ordeal and I would like to do what I can."

Javert shook his head in disbelief. If there was one thing he knew about Madeleine then it was that if he ever came across a situation that looked like it might need fixing then he was there trying ardently to fix it single-handedly even if he was the only one who thought it needed to be fixed. His motives for doing so were still suspect but his behavior, at least, was predictable by now. "You already offered that to them and I think that some will take you up on that. Do you really not remember?"

Madeleine colored. "I was…not as focused as perhaps I could have been," he said delicately. "At least not then. I was upset at being forced to end things so early. Not because I was resentful at having to do what was best for everyone there! I was just upset that things had to come to a point where I would need to stop everything so soon."

"I can assure you that the other prisoners were quite relieved to be so unexpectedly pardoned," Javert said.

"The guards weren't," Madeleine replied. "Or at least the six guards who were not there when I ended things expressed their discontent when they came to see me later and I explained what had happened to them."

"All of them?" Javert asked, surprised.

Madeleine nodded. "All of them. They said that they had enjoyed the challenge and were sorry to see that it was over."

"That's interesting," Javert remarked. "I would have expected that from some, the ones that abused their power and people who abuse power always enjoy it or they would not do it. Perhaps even the truly good guards would have an understandable pride in their work. But some of the guards, the ones who would never punish anyone, did not seem like they really liked being guards."

Back in Toulon it was possible to weed out the ones who would be too lenient but no one ever knew whether the ones that remained would be good guards or not. And they had certainly changed over the course of time as they became more comfortable with their roles and came to properly appreciate the necessity of treating the convicts like the beasts they were for all that the people of Toulon did not always understand.

Madeleine shook his head. "I do not know. I was not there most of the time. But perhaps…"

"Yes?"

"Perhaps they enjoyed the power that it gave them over the others, even if they would not use it and tried very hard not to abuse it," Madeleine suggested.

Javert looked consideringly at Madeleine. Was that how it was for him? "That's certainly a possibility."

Madeleine swallowed and looked away but that could mean any number of things. "I wonder why it was that none of the prisoners came out and quit. Perhaps you could offer some insight on the matter. Only two prisoners left at all."

"23344 did quit," Javert pointed out.

"That is true," Madeleine conceded. "But he only did that after he developed some truly alarming behavior. Or perhaps he tried to quit and they did not let him so he developed the behavior then."

"I think that was it," Javert said, thinking back. "It only started after he came back and told us that there was no way out."

"Everyone was very eager to leave. Aside from you, they all begged me at their early parole interview to let them go and would have happily paid all the money back just to leave. And yet I asked people if they wanted to quit and no one would. No one even asked meeven though they knew that I had released others." Madeleine sounded so confused it was almost frustration.

"It is…difficult for me to say since I had never had any intention of leaving or any delusions that I could not end the whole thing just by letting you know I wished to leave," Javert said slowly.

"But you must have some idea."

"I can only offer speculation," Javert protested.

"I would hear it, please," Madeleine said and there was a command in that voice despite the request of the words.

"It was like I said with that man who said there was no way out. Perhaps he asked to leave and was not allowed to," Javert said. "The only time someone was released was when you ordered it. The guards always suspected people were trying to escape their sentence as though they were real guards who had to worry about that and not guarding over volunteers who were legally free to leave at any time. People seemed to forget that they were not actually prisoners very quickly."

"But not you."

"How could I?" Javert asked rhetorically. "I who had been there when the idea was had and helped plan a great deal of it? This was all for my benefit if you will remember."

Madeleine nodded. "I do. And the prisoners? I really should have paid more attention to them, there is no excuse for my negligence there, but I will try to make it up to them and see how they are tomorrow."

Javert shrugged. He had not spent a great deal of time with them but he had walked part of the way back to his rooms with those that lived the same way and they had begun to discuss what had happened. "They seemed to find it pleasantly strange to be called by their true names once more as well. Everyone was insisting on using their names during the rebellion but ceased afterwards. They felt like numbers and were marveling about the sights they see every day. It was as though they had been removed from their life and needed to get used to it again even though it had been less than a week."

"And you?" Madeleine pressed. "Did you feel anything like this? Did you think of yourself as a number? Did you think of them as a number?"

"The rules stated that we were to only refer to each other by number and so I decided that would be easier if I thought of them as numbers as well. It was more of an effort at first because I did know their names but after awhile it became easier. It was not quite the same as it was at Toulon but it was something like it," Javert replied. "What else did you ask me? If I thought of myself as a number? I found that I could not though I did not resist others referring to me as my number. Perhaps if more time had passed then that would have changed the way it changed with the others. I could not say. I did not feel any different than them except that I truly suspected at times that they forgot that none of that was real whilst I never did. I tried to make myself not think of the fact that it was not a true prison but that proved…difficult."

Madeleine nodded. "I almost fear to see how you will react to this offer but I cannot in good conscience make it to everyone else and not to you. Please let me know if you need anything, even just to talk, as a result of this experience."

"Or at all, I'm sure," Javert said dryly. "You made the offer to our whole group and I was a part of that group so you have already made that offer to me. It is kindly meant, I know, but I shall have to pass."

Madeleine nodded like he had expected that answer. "What of our disagreement, Javert? Obviously the conditions you and the others faced were far different and more mild than what I know of actual prison conditions but we did our best to be a little humane while still having a workable system. The prisoners certainly…reacted."

"What would you have me say?" Javert asked after a moment.

"Has your view changed at all?" Madeleine asked him. "

This was a question that Javert did not wish to answer though the whole point of the past few days was to address this and he would not lie to a superior.

"Though I cannot be entirely sure that some were not faking, I did see a change take place. It was not enough to turn any of them into animals but they were certainly very different when they left compared to how they had started," Javert admitted.

"And this was only six days of far more mild conditions than anything our prisons have to offer," Madeleine said, pleased. "Imagine what longer in worse conditions could have led to."

"I never argued that there were not certain ways in which a man who had not been to prison was not distinguishable from a man who had even if they were physically the same," Javert insisted.

Madeleine nodded at him to continue.

"Still, being in such close proximity to the same eight people for several days was not what I had experienced before. I had seen change back in Toulon but I had not had the opportunity to study it up close. I just saw defiant men broken or weeping wrecks grow silent," Javert continued.

Madeleine looked pained, no doubt wasting his pity on those who did not deserve it yet again.

"I do think that, perhaps, it is possible that prison can really change a person," Javert finally conceded.

Madeleine's eyes lit up and it looked like he was going to say something but Javert held up his hands to forestall any self-congratulation (or even praise of Javert for finally coming around to Madeleine's viewpoint).

"It is not such a radical notion, perhaps. A man who does not know much about being a criminal and was put in prison for forging or theft may learn a great deal more about criminality from a murderer. You cannot possibly say that a man who has it in him to kill did not always have it in him to kill even if, had things been different, he might have never killed. It does not matter what someone has inside of them if it is never let loose but once that man shows his evil nature to the world and forges or thieves or kills then that is that. And those with evil natures are always revealed in time," Javert said firmly.

"But what if that forger or that thief is not placed with a killer and never learns to kill?" Madeleine persisted. "As you said, what difference does it make if he is capable if he never does it? Would not society be safer without turning a man into a killer?"

"I would not go so far as to say that he would be turned into a killer," Javert disagreed. "But what do you suggest? Merely spending time with a killer does not turn one into one themselves. I have spent a great deal of time around the worst criminals France has to offer and yet you do not see me going around committing crimes! And what would you suggest, building separate prisons for those who commit different crimes?"

"No," Madeleine replied. "But perhaps we could at least try to keep the worst criminals from the lesser ones."

"They are all the worst ones and that is how they ended up in Toulon in the first place," Javert said stubbornly. "We already keep them away from the lesser criminals by sending them away to toil."

"It is different, being a guard, than being a prisoner. You must have seen that," Madeleine tried again. "You just had to witness it but the prisoners had to live with such severity and harshness as to be unimaginable to those who have not seen it."

"Those like you," Javert said pointedly.

"Tell me, did the guards here change as much as the prisoners?"

"No," Javert conceded. "Though they, too, were changed in a way. But the people here did not become criminals because they do not have it in them to be like that. They were just broken a little and all that that proves to me is that prison is terrible for any man to be in and so it is of great importance that no innocent man suffers it. That was something I already knew."

Madeleine looked at him for a long moment in silence and it seemed to Javert that he was being pitied which was an intolerable state of affairs.

"Monsieur le Maire?" he asked stiffly.

"I wish that you understood, Javert," Madeleine said sorrowfully.

"There is not understanding and not agreeing and I comprehend your viewpoint perfectly," Javert said. "Was there anything else you wished of me?"

Madeleine stared at him for another moment before shutting his eyes. "No, there was not."


End file.
